


An Enchanted Revision--Another Chance With You

by Sing



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: AU, Adventure, F/M, Gen, Humor, In which I throw out mythology and canon as we know it, Magic, Memory Loss, Mystery, Mystical things, New Lives, Oh gee where to start, Past Lives, Rebirth, Resurrection type thing, Romance, Slow Burn, Supernatural - Freeform, ichabbie - Freeform, past lives ichabbie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-06-04 08:23:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 65,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6650035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sing/pseuds/Sing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His rooting around through what remains of the Mills family tree takes Crane to a quaint town, place they barely bothered to name---where he swears he's found the next Witness in line-his new comrade  in arms. And bless him, he finds Abbie.</p><p>And he intends to do right by her this time. Failure is not an option.</p><p>Originally posted in my Multi-Ship fic Blasphemy.</p><p>Revised from original posting.</p><p>All comments welcome!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The journey begins.
> 
> Comments please!!!!

The year is April, 2016.

"DADDY!" a voice screeches. 

The man grumbles as he begins packing their things in the back of the car. Rain came upon them without warning, cutting their little trip to the lake short. Pity. Likes to come out here with his girls. Curious spirited things, twelve years old and riot some. Got them when he was young. Lucky thing he had loved their mother and had already been married for a year before they cropped up. They're twins. 

"Come on now, no time for games come on--" he begins trudging toward the sound of their voices, now pitching up into panic and alarm, moves into a clumsy sprint, feet sliding in the mud. "What the---"

"DADDY" they keep screaming amid sobs. 

"What's wrong with your sister?" he demands, getting on the ground next to the one, bawling and rocking on the floor but the other tugs on his sleeve, pointing wildly. "Damn it can't you see your sister's hurt?" he asks, casting a glance over his shoulder to see what his daughter sees. A sick cold feeling sweeps over his body. "My God," he mutters before a bolt of lightening strikes him head on. Lights him up from head to toe. The world explodes, shatters, slides into place and fragments again in that split second, before he's laying stiff as a board on the mossy shore.

"DADDY!" one continues to wail. 

"Daddy, daddy help me," sobs the other. 

A chorus of desperation and fear washed away in the tide of the storm.

And an electrified shriek when a new horror finds them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Six months later

"You sure about going alone out there Crane?" Jenny asks warily as she hands him another shirt for his bag. She took him shopping week before last when they'd finally gotten a lead that sounded promising. 

Turns out Mills folk like to lay low.

Don't go around making big fusses out of career advancements and flashy hobbies. Don't invest in social media and don't let many people in. And weren't many of them to begin with. Most of the information they'd been chasing---in between being chased themselves by some rather industrious imps and monsters---had lead to families with absolutely no blood tie whatsoever. 

Some thorough perusing on Jenny's end had finally brought them upon Cecilia Gordon, living some place they'd never heard of. Ezra's Grandmother. Old, old, wizened thing nearly a hundred, if not past it already; had outlived all three of her children. Buried Ezra's mother, Eve, when she was a in tragic car accident. Ezra had been eighteen at the time. Had gone to college and never did bother to look back on none of them. The grief had made him run. 

Buried his uncle, Right Wade, heart attack six years after. No children

And her youngest, girl with the sun risen and set in her face she'd called Joy. She'd married a good man, had given her one good son, lived happy enough lives until old age. Joy had gone peaceably in the night at seventy five. Her husband, Lloyd Dove senior, had held onto life just long enough to see her laid in earth before he followed her into the here after. 

Sheer defiance had permitted Cecilia to live so long. A sense too that maybe she was waiting for something. When the call came that her great great grandson was in hospital, she'd thought, perhaps she was meant to bury the last of them. His father was taken swiftly from him the summer before with lung Cancer-late detection. Trail goes cold there

This had all taken a lot of digging and poking around in records and disguised voices calling around the neighbourhood.

"Who, Mother Cece? fine old woman though I'd dare say she was here when the world began," one helpful woman had informed them. Jenny had claimed to be doing research for an article on generations and women and some poppycock that the too eager busybody had bought. 

"Buried half her family. Had a grandson that hightailed after his momma died. She had to HEAR he'd gotten married when my boy came back and said he'd met him out in the military. Though things weren't right with him and the wife then." 

"That family's seen some odd turns these past few months, if you ask me," 

That last one had sparked their interest. "Odd? how do you mean?"

But the line had gone dead. 

They'd started making preparations for Crane to head out almost the instant after they'd gotten off the phone. Hopeful, that Cecilia, in her poor weary mind, could grant them some answers. Or a point in the right direction--surely someone that old and an ancestor of Ezra Mills had to know SOMETHING. 

So Jenny and Ezra got him set. They rationalized if by some chance the next witness was to be found---the force of the bond and nothing else would be able to eke them out. Crane would be venturing out, borrowing Jenny's truck, alone. 

"Godspeed," Jenny whispers as she sees him into the car. Crane gives an affirmative nod.

"I shall call if I find any information"

"Lord help us I hope you do Crane," Ezra says pointedly. "This is our last chance"


	2. Chapter 2

The drive is long, too many silent moments for him to be aware of the silence. He's never driven this far, alone. It's always been Jenny, Ezra, or sometimes Sophie, when they needed an extra hand on deck during one of their more difficult creature hunts. There hasn't been any new formidable foes to thwart. Headless rode back into town and seemingly rode back out of it, without a whimper, without a sound, not even a freshly severed head to remember him by. No, for all intents and purpose it is chaos now. Just wicked little things cropping up, causing no small amount of trouble, mind you, but loyal to no one, no great apocalyptic cause. Though the last few have proven worthy enough to really give them a run for their money. They'd become a studied case in efficiency since Abbie passed. Had to, in order to fill the void. Had to make up for the vacant spot--spots--Deliver her from her sorrow--Crane thinks sadly of Jenny, who he still hears crying at night. For Abbie and Joe But she still wears his shirts and eats his favourite food even though it makes her throw up in grief. 

For Crane, his grief has become a haunting thing. He didn't make a proper mess of himself when he should have, there at her grave, so he's been making up for lost time. Shock then, a numbness had rendered him mute. An unwilling-ness to come apart at the seams before strangers --because family or none Ezra was preciscely that, and for both him and Miss Jenny to devolve into a mess of tears and suicidal ruminations---the idea has visited him, alarmingly frequently for nearly two months---would do them no good. 

Suppose I just don't fight, the thought would occur to him calmly as a demon swung towards his head. 

Suppose I tore my shirt open and told it here, take my heart I've no use for it. 

Damn Jenny who was selfish enough to spare him the quick death he was always chasing in those moments, always making short work of the monster before it could do him a sorely desired kindness. He resents almost every time she saves his life. Just as she resents him saving hers. It's unseemly, what remains of a team who want to find the next Witness as prophesied, to both loath the earth they walk and life they live with such desperation they would invite deliverance from it. With such complicated disdain and malevolent loyalty to half despise the other for preserving their life in it. For demanding the other live to keep enduring this fight and living in misery with them. 

Yet, they have clung to one another like brother and sister. Have had no choice. They are all the other has left, aside from Ezra, who carries his grief in a different manner. A soldiers baring of man who has seen difficult things and lived with them. 

I use to be that way, Crane muses as he makes his exit off the highway. But then, I don't think I've ever loved anything I lost, and mistreated it so terribly before. He angrily dashes away the tears that start to his eyes. 

The sun is shining. The sky is bright. A perfect mockery to his black mood but he takes a deep breath and mutters reassurances to himself. This trip must prove successful. There must be...something, anything, that can---oh nothing can heal these wounds half a year old and still gaping, he knows that---but perhaps the new Witness will at least restore his faith in this mission. Keep him fighting. 

At least another face to be angry with when they deflect a death blow. It's not fair that Jenny bares all of his ungratefulness. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
It begins with disappointment, for when he approaches the front door of wise old matriarch Cecilia Gordon, he's informed by the new resident of the house that "she passed last week. In her sleep,"

He'd wept. Openly. The chance they had been banking on and the trail literally gone cold. 

"Oh, dear, come in, would you like some tea? did you know her well?"

Who knows what blubbering answer he gave this kind woman but in he went. Sobbing over a tea cup inconsolably for what must have been going on half an hour. The woman had let him, bless her. Had told him stories of growing up scared of trampling Mother Cece's plants. 

"Why didn't you just stay away," Crane had asked half heartedly. Loss still crashing over him. All traces gone, he kept thinking. All questions unanswered, and him again burdened with knowing he has failed failed failed again. Why was he such a foolish man? so STUPID? This could have all been avoided had he thrown himself in beside her. This mistake will haunt him unto his grave---and oh how he longs for it. 

"Mother Cece's garden was the best hiding place when we were all children. Old woman infamously hid sweets in the hedges, I think she liked having us running around. Kept us coming back. She'd scold us good and then tell us come on in for lunch. Stalwart woman, I think we all wagered she'd outlive us all. She's gone home now," the woman sighs. "Name's Winnie, by the way. You know, her grandson is still in town."

He didn't even have the energy to be excited. He didn't dare. "Grandson?"

"Well, great--great great?--oh I can't remember, but Yeah, lives further out, but he use to come here to visit her all the time." She plucks a scrap of paper off the table and scribbles and address.

"And now, you live here?" Crane queries, drying his eyes. Winnie shrugs. 

"Home life wasn't what it should have been. Married a son of a bitch who'd have seen me in the ground if it weren't for Cece...she took me in. I'd been looking after her. She left me the house. I was prepared to war with Dove for it, but he didn't mind me. Been strange for a while now. Whole family's been---how do you know the family again?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Crane pulls up to the address after making a suspiciously clumsy departure from Mother Cece's--Winnie's house.

He finds her, in this new town, small place. Kind people. But what he doesn't expect is for her to look at him blankly when he all but leaps over the fence of the house where she is outside, in skirt and apron---that should be the giveaway there---watering the flowers and plants on the porch. "Can I help you?" she asks, more amused than affronted by his enthusiasm.

"Abbie?" he approaches cautiously. 

She quirks a brow at him, sets the watering can down on the porch, dusts off her hands and cocks her head to the side. "Who you calling 'Abbie'? I'm Hope around here. Hell haven't been called Abbie since.....oh, '05"

"I beg your pardon?" Crane splutters.

Hope shrugs. "You know how many Abigail's there are running around this country? There's gotta be a dozen Grace's and Abigail's in my family alone---got three cousins who sport the name....had. I had three. One of them passed some months ago, word travelled slowly out here though. I'm told I look just like her, don't know how it could be, but there it is. Family's not as tight knit as ought to be. You a friend of Donovans?"

"D--d---donovan?"

She nods over Crane's shoulder, mouth curling into a smirk. "Strapping young man behind you there," she laughs, going back to her watering. Crane turns over his shoulder then, absolutely befuddled by this strange new turn---how can it be that she doesn't recognize him? how can----and then he meets eyes with Donovan.

An unmistakable feeling of right that is so WRONG settles in his stomach. Donovan eyes him warily. He's a broad man. Robust. Square jaw, dark skinned, bright white straight teeth. He's a handsome man. Would make any woman trip over themselves to get closer to him. But it's his eyes. The little glint of a spark in them. That split second of recognition. Crane wants to vomit.

"Donovan Dove. I see you've met Hope."

"I'm sorry," Crane shuts his gaping mouth at last. "She's your....?"

"Sister." Hope answers, looking at them both funny. "You know him Donny?"

"Fraid I don't, but I'm guessing I will soon. Can I help you?"

"Crane," Ichabod manages at last. Disbelief making his throat run dry. HOW is this possible? Can it be that, the next witness summoned to duty is a man? But...what of his connection to Abbie---Hope? his draw to this woman is just as strong as his compatriot, but he cannot mistake the bond. The feeling of something locking into place. Nothing like the love and care he felt for Abbie, no--he's sure now that a good deal of that attachment had to do with Abbie herself. Abbie is singular and no beneficiary of their generational duty could replicate that. But he knows this feeling of recognition. Of sync. He sees it in Donovan's eyes. The way they sweep over him, assessing.

"Just Crane?" Donovan presses, raising a brow.

"Ichabod, Crane."

"You got business here? I keep telling Hope I've no interest in her bringing all her admirers through here."

"No suitor of mine" Hope laughs. "Looks to me you might be more his type,"

Crane snaps out of his whirling shock quick enough to exclaim "ABSOLUTELY NOT"

"Defensive aren't we?" she teases, and the smile, the mischief dancing in her eyes is so like the first, so like, ABBIE he aches, deeply in his core.

"Stop taunting the guy would you Hope? geez. You wanna join us for lunch?" Donovan invites. "You haven't lived till you've had the wife's potato salad"

Crane feels himself nod, accepting the invitation before he can make sense of what he's actually agreeing to. But his feet carry him over the threshold and he walks by Hope, who is watching him carefully, eyes still twinkling before she follows in behind him, skirt swishing and heels tapping---NOTHING like the Abbie he lost and yet something innately her too. He didn't pack any of the books. He has no resources whatsoever to explain these events to him. He can't make sense of it.

Because of all things, it seems that Donovan is the next in line for Witness Duty.

And this reincarnated version of the Abbie he loves---Hope Dove.....is not.

This time around, Abbie/Hope is not behooved to take on the cares of the world and procure salvation. She is not a divinely chosen warrior that will selflessly, wrecklessly sacrifice herself again and again.

This time, Ichabod Crane is going to have to protect her, truly, save her from the dark world that will show her too much blood and loss. And have her brother fight at his side instead.

But.....does that mean his connection to her is forfeit? Can he ever communicate to her the dept of their history and bond? And even so, how on earth would he ever explain this unprecedented turn?

Or.

Will telling her the truth doom her all over again?

As he is ushered to the table by a statuesque woman with ropes of braids falling down her back--her names Faye. And two daughters, come tripping down the stairs to join them. Twins. Crane balks at the sight of them. Twins but not identical. One bares a resemblance to Donovan, true, but the other has an undeniably similar face to that of Hope and Abbie before.

"You sit there Ichabod." Faye smiles, depositing him in the seat next to Hope. Donovan takes the head of the table and the girls plop down opposite.

"My girls," Donovan introduces them. "Glory," he gestures to the one that looks like him, "And Phoenix Grace" My, Crane thinks, but the Mills line does like to give their daughters prophetic names.

Under the table Hope nudges him. "See what I mean? Grace's and Abbie's coming out your ears" she whispers out the corner of her mouth. He jolts just enough to glance at her. Their eyes lock then and he KNOWS she must feel, must sense SOMETHING, but just as quickly the moment vanishes.

"Is there a law?" he drawls and it earns him one of her classic smirks. There is something so wrong and right about everything happening in this moment. He'll need to call Jenny when he has time but until then, he's going to have to find a way to do his own research to explain this bizarre phenomenon, he wonders if Ezra has any pertinent information---

"So, Crane," Donovan interrupts his thoughts, temples his fingers and levels a steely gaze his way. It's unmistakably formidable and determined. "Might have jumped the gun inviting you in here so quick, my daughters and all. Promise you're not a serial killer? Cuz I'd just as soon gut you here at the table and Hope would make a rug."

"He's not kidding," she replies smoothly beside him.

"I assure you no, Master Dove, you see, I....I am a friend of the Mills family, back in the town of Sleepy Hollow,"

"What brings you by all the way out here?"

Beside him, Hope suddenly goes very still. "That's where she died, wasn't it Donovan---?"

"Hope," Donovan interjects, rising from the table and that is when Crane becomes aware that Hope is bent over, clutching her head between her hands. "Hope you alright?"

"My head, these damned headaches, they come on worse and worse every time."

Faye quickly sweeps around the table helping Hope to her feet. "We'll get you to lie down, come on, I'll put some lunch aside for you,"

"Just when things are getting interesting around here it always---argh" she groans, sauntering out of the dining room behind Faye. Donovan watches the women go, turns his gaze on his daughters, and with a quick nod the girls grab their plates and excuse themselves, leaving Ichabod and Donovan alone. Donovan works his mouth a moment before turning towards him.

"Alright Crane," he bites out through gritted teeth. "Time to start talking."

"I'm not quite sure how to begin---"

"We're gonna start with you explaining to me how my cousin dies mysteriously near six months ago and my long lost sister comes ambling out of the woodwork shortly after. You're gonna explain to me why I got dreams of horsemen. And why I'd bet my life that we've met before."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing is adding up.

Crane swallows, preparing himself to divulge impossible details. "How familiar are you with the Book of Revelations?" he begins and Donovan's nostrils flare, a keen glint in his eye. 

"I'm really thinking I'd better take Hope to the doctor tomorrow, these new meds aren't helping and besides that they make her nauseas --oh" Faye stops in the arch way of the dining room. 

"You fellas still catching up? "

"What's wrong with Abb-Hope? Is she sick?" Crane queries. Faye glances at her husband, gauging his stance and a mild suspicion seeps into her gaze, she rocks back on one foot, folds her arms, closing herself off. She's protective of her, Crane thinks. 

"She'll just sleep for an hour or so, nothing to worry about…it's gonna rain though," she says pointedly, directing this to Donovan. "You'd better go to ground. I'll get this one here set up in the guest. Don't look at me like that Donny Dove," she scolds, voice stern and gaze steely. "You spooked the girls last time. Glory couldn't sleep for days" 

"Faye."

"Donovan." she counters in a tone that brooks no argument. He casts one more glance at Crane before hauling off from the table and disappearing down the hall. 

"You'll have to excuse us." Faye says warmly, though she's still poised in the defensive. "Haven't had visitors in a while." six months, to be exact, she thinks. Not since Donovan's accident, not since Hope got here, not since Phoenix Grace--- "How'd you find us, if you don't mind me asking?" She holds a hand up, answering herself before Crane has a chance. "Lemme guess, Winnie."

Crane nods solemnly, unsure whether to sit down or bolt for the door. Faye nods. "She's a sweet girl, really. Had a lot of spark before that brute came into her life. Going on three years before Mother Cece took her in this summer, and--" they'd found her abusive husband with his throat slit out in the wood backing onto the property. Had caused an uproar in the town for months, they're still investigating it, but no ones come forward and no evidence was found. They hounded Winnie terribly; claimed she was the only one with motive. She's still recovering from it. Her and Winnie have never been close friends but they did go to school together, get on well enough. They'd seen more of her when she moved in with that old woman, crazy like a fox yet sharp as a whip in old age. Wonder that she stopped being stubborn enough to die. "Grandma Cecilia was a good woman. You'd have liked her. She'd have loved to hear from you and how the Mills are doing. Ezra was her grandson, the first. She talked about him a lot." Faye's voice trails off and she shakes her head. Thunder rolls in the distance. "Come on, you got bags in the car?"

"I don't meant to impose--"

"You don't wanna be caught out there in that storm, I promise you that. They're unruly out here. I'll show you to your room"  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
On his way back inside Crane has time to assess the house properly. Truthfully, lovely home. It has more character than home he once shared with Abbie. Unconventional crowning, careful wood choices--he'd wager Donovan is probably into construction. They have interesting little character pieces. He almost draws a pistol on the large leather turtle shaped ottoman in the living room. Faye smirks at his skittishness. There are family photos on the wall, some easily three to five, to ten years old and they all include Hope. 

But that doesn't make sense, Crane rationalizes as he walks down the hall. Didn't Donovan mention something to him of Hope just showing up recently? Had she only been away a short while? 

But he had said "Long lost" didn't he? doesn't that dictate someone who has been extraneously absent? 

He follows Faye up to the second floor, concentrating on the pendulum motion of her braids swinging to and fro while he tries and fails to sort his thoughts. They pass a washroom, linen closet, the girls rooms, one for each on either side of the hall, and then there's one, with the door ajar. He doubles back imperceptibly and there's Hope curled up on the bed under a light blanket. Her curly hair a spray across the pillow. Brow slightly furrowed. She mutters and rolls over. He doesn't notice he's taken another step back, towards the door, crossing the threshold until the damn tattle tailing floorboards give a decidedly uncalled for shriek. Faye whirls around after him, tugging his arm, but he doesn't miss the fact that Hope's eye had cracked open and that she had seen him, all but prowling into her room. 

"You'd better get in line," Faye chuckles. "Turns heads wherever she goes. But I won't have you skulking around her. You wanna talk to her you'll wait till she's up and sound enough for sentences. Here we are." she throws her arm towards a room and Crane wanders inside. 

"It's lovely." he answers truthfully. A queen bed. This room painted a sort of periwinkle. There's a dresser and nightstand, basic furnishings, but the bed is full of inviting pillows and cushions. It smells like pine and there's a bookshelf there, stuffed to the brim, spans a whole wall. Whatever misgivings he may have had, anyone thoughtful enough to stock a shelf in their guest room wins a piece of his heart. There's also a plush little rug before the bed, an arm chair in the corner by the window. Cozy. Welcoming. He could be very comfortable here---but you're not here to stay, Crane--he reminds himself. You have a mission. Find the new witness, resume your destined journey. Faye had left him quietly in the room without him even noticing. He tosses his bag at the food of the bed, rummages for his cell. 

"Crane, thank God"

"Cecilia Gordon is deceased." 

"That's one helluva opening line," Jenny groans. 

"I might have some news, however. I was directed to the address of her…I believe, great, great grandson. Donovan Dove."

"Well that's something."

"Indeed. And…" dare he say it? dare he declare to Jenny that he's found Abbie? How can he when the Abbie he's found is almost nothing like theirs at all? 

"And?"

"Mr. Crane?"

He spooks entirely and drops the phone. It's the girls at the door, baring a tea tray. "Mom sent us up," Glory chimes, striding forward with tray in hand. Phoenix Grace hangs back shyly. 

"Thank you, Miss Glory and Miss Phoenix Grace, thank you very much. I was just, making a call," His eyes cast about the room, trying to track the phone that skittered out of view. 

Glory's eyes narrow. "Who were you calling?"

He stammers at the child's forthrightness. He'd have called her rude if he wasn't so distracted. 

"You're not talking about daddy are you? Or Phee?" she probes. Crane furrows his brow. What makes this child so wary of him already?

"Phee?"

"My nickname," Phoenix Grace answers, smiling slightly. 

"No, no no," Crane protests, scrambling on all fours now looking for the phone. He can faintly hear Jenny yelling through the speaker. 

Glory cocks her head to the side, listening and starts helping him look, "Here we go," she announces triumphantly after diving beneath the bed and scurrying back out with it in hand. "But I…I think I accidentally hung up." 

Crane restrains himself from snatching it out of the girls hand and instead calmly retrieves it. He strongly suspects that Glory did not 'accidentally' disconnect his call. "No harm done, thank you for the tea."

"You're welcome." Glory beams and her sister beside her grins before they depart. Crane is just hitting redial when Phoenix pokes her head back in the room, jolting him again.

"Sorry" she laughs. "Um. Just, while you're here, however long Mr. Crane, you can call me Phee, too." she cracks a smile before she goes. 

Charming little imp he thinks and while he considers calling back Miss Jenny, he's not quite sure he has all the answers he needs for her probing questions. It never crossed his mind when he set out that he might find more secrets and puzzles than what his life is already plagued with daily. And he's concerned about Hope. Is she sick? he wonders. What sort of medications has she been taking? The idea of her being ill makes his heart constrict. No matter what Donovan, Faye, the whole Dove family believes, nor the evidence to the contrary, he knows the woman he loves is in there. 

He needs answers, and at present Donovan may be the only one who has them. And then a thought occurs to him.

Wait.

What had Faye meant by suggesting Donovan "Go to ground"?   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The girls had come tripping back downstairs giggling. "You aren't tormenting Mr.Crane already are you? He's a guest,"

"Not at all. He's clumsy though. Dropped his phone when we brought up the tea."

"Twice," Phee snickered. 

"He was on the phone with someone though," Glory says seriously. 

Faye squints at the sheet music on her stand, sighs, and sets the bow and her cello aside. "That nosey nature of yours will get you in trouble. Come here," Glory sighs exasperatedly and tugging on her sisters hand drags her in behind her, forgetting that Phee doesn't need her to lead her around, never did, but Glory had always taken special pride in being her sisters keeper, looking out for her and keeping her safe. Until that terrifying day by the lake "No changes?" Faye asks and Glory shakes her head. 

"None"

Phee shoots her a look and Faye rolls her eyes. "I meant Phoenix Grace and you know it. You're gonna have to stop speaking for her. People thought it was sweet before, but since….since…." she strokes Phee's head, fingers gliding among her twists, peers into her daughters eyes. "Since things….changed. She's….you're gonna have to get used to her, standing on her own. Speaking for herself. Now. Any changes?"

Phee blinks a couple of times. "World as sharp as ever." she answers.

"Good." Faye kisses her forehead, wraps an arm around Glory. "Go amuse yourselves. Leave Mr. Crane alone and don't wake Hope yet."

"Yes mom," they drawl in unison. Once gone Faye rubs her knuckles on her brow, considers taking up practice again when the thunder crashes outside. She knows she should go check up on Donovan but….oh she shivers just thinking about it. She used to love rain . Played her best with a storm raging outside. Now they bring nothing but a feeling of dread. 

"Well, for better or worse Faye" she mutters to herself, grabbing her coat and headed for what used to be Donovan's workshop.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The storm wakes her. That and the creaky floor. She sits up, listening. Silence. She raises a brow and swings her feet out of the bed, pulls on some socks and begins creeping stealthily towards her bedroom door. Hope is many things but she's not crazy. She knows there's someone lurking outside her door and she'd place bets on who. "I know you're there," she calls softly. 

A beat passes before Crane steps into view, visibly releasing a breath he's been holding. "My apologies, Miss…..Hope" he will be struggling with this new name, he knows it. 

She leans on the frame, looking up at him. Her eyes roam over his face, searching. "Sorry for my episode earlier. Can't predict them for the life of me,"

"H…Hope, you, you aren't…unwell, are you?"

She holds his gaze "The world is unwell Crane." and something in her voice in that moment, has the intimate confidentiality he has become so used to that he can't help but lean towards her, just a bit. "So we're all a little sick right along with it," 

"I wish you a full restoration of your health, to be rid of whatever may ail you,"

"Why are you creeping outside my bedroom door?" she asks. "I'm short not weak. Try anything and I'll lay you out flat" 

"I know how formidable you are," he lets slip. "I wasn't looking for you truthfully, I was aiming to find your brother. But that board made such a racket it stopped me and I was hoping I hadn't woken you up.  
"  
"Well you did." she smiles, easily drifting past him out into the hall leading the way towards the stairs she waits for him to follow her. "I'm hungry. Did you get a chance to eat earlier?"

His stomach answers for him. 

"Let's eat, my nieces will be down stairs we can watch a movie and wait out this awful storm."

"What about Master Donovan? and Miss Faye, I haven't heard them….."

"I know you don't prefer the company of my surly brother to me," she teases him as she descends the stairs, she looks over her shoulder at him as he follows. "Abigail, Hope, Dove." she says. "But I've always preferred Hope, Abigail is too….old, somehow, it's got past, history. Hope makes me think of the future. Beginnings. So that's why. They tell you my name was Abigail too?"

"Who?"

"The Mills?"

"Oh, yes. Yes they did."

"Hmm." she dismounts the stairs and hollers for the twins. "Glory? Phee?"

"In the living room auntie" they call back and Crane follows her to the kitchen where she takes out the potato salad that Faye had made, the drumsticks and reaches for a bottle of wine. 

"You don't mind do you? It's not strong," she pours a glass for herself and Crane and then begins serving the food. There's silence while plates clatter and microwaves beep, the distant audience laughter of whatever comedy the girls are watching on tv. "Do….do I look like her?"

"Hmmm?"

"Abbie, the one--" she cuts off, winces, holds her head a moment. Crane swiftly moves to her side, taking the plate out of her hand and seating her on the stool at the counter, his hand lingers on her back. She considers his ready willingness to her side, the proximity and care. And his eyes. 

"What makes you ask" he inquires softly. 

"You knew her, didn't you?" she leans on the counter, squeezing her eyes shut and waiting for the pain to subside. 

Crane answers slowly. "…..yes, I did. Very well."

"It's just that you keep looking at me….like....like you've met me before. Like you know me." 

It takes everything within him not to answer: I do.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's strange goings on in the Dove Family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise there will be more answers sooner than later, and more bonding between you know who *wink wink*
> 
> Timeline jumps between April of 2016 and six months after the event, September, which is present day for the characters. if that makes sense. 
> 
> I also promise this backstory is relevant. Promise. 
> 
> Leave your thoughts!

April 2016

It's evening and she's been caught up in the music. She has the entire house to herself, Donovan having taken the girls for a day out. Chores finished quickly without having to keep an eye on them, now's a good time to put some decent practice in. 

Faye's just finished rehearsing the Brahms, and is shuffling through the music now to start going over her next piece when the phone rings. It draws her out of her concentrated reverie. She cracks her neck, flexes her fingers before swiping across the screen on her cell, balanced carefully on the music stand. She doesn't check the number, hits speaker. 

"Are you guys headed home? That storm is---"

"Mrs. Dove?" a new, foreign voice asks. Faye pauses, taking the phone in hand. 

"This is she."

"Your husband is here at Memorial." 

"I...my....excuse me? It can't be my---"

"Donovan Dove? Age thirty five?"

Her blood runs cold. "What's happened to him?"

"He was struck by lightening, Mrs. Dove." 

"My daughters," she starts.

"They're here, Mrs. Dove. We'll discuss their condition when you get here."

"Condition?" she repeats, clumsily extracting herself from chair, stand, cello leaned on the wall, once freed of obstacles skidding to and fro in the house looking for her keys, her bag, her shoes, her coat. All in rather close proximity to the other but nerves betraying her at this moment, making her fidgety. "I'm on my way" she says, at last getting herself together, dashing down the driveway rain water chilling her head as she ducks in the car and tries her best to be quick if not dangerous on the road.

"I'm Faye Dove, his wife," she announces upon arrival and the doctor, kind little man of brown complexion looks up at her and accompanied by two nurses lead her down the hall. When she turns the corner her stomach drops at the sight of Donovan laid out in the bed. Room smells like smoke but he's not even bandaged. 

"He's stable." the doctor says, watching Faye as she mutely approaches his bed side, taking his hand up in hers. He smells like smoke, room, air is damn singed but not a scar, not a tear, not a burn on his flesh. "Mrs. Dove, I'd like to discuss your daughter"

A sick feeling keeps roiling in her. Donovan's injured and now one of her children? "Which one?" she asks, voice quaking. 

The doctor flips through the chart, records pulled from the database that the health system shares from family doctor to hospital. "Phoenix Grace, there's been a change in her condition"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Six Months Later. September

Hope turns her head to look at Crane in his silence. She should be unnerved to find that he's looking at her, looking into her, it would seem, but there's enough odd things about this household to keep one plenty occupied. Her recurring headaches for one. She still has one now, if she's being honest, but she's fighting off the incurring wrath of that cranial assault to stay here, at the moment. If not because she can't stand being coddled and bed ridden than because Crane has yet to take his hand off of her. Has not stepped back and away yet. In fact she'd almost think he's leaning in closer, body bending protectively around her and a dull sense of alarm tells her this isn't normal behaviour. "Have we met?" she whispers, finally mustering the will to draw away, to reach for her plate and glass, twirling the stem slowly and thoughtfully in her fingers. "I don't......" nothing fits anymore these days, her mind is an unyielding fog, and when she does try to connect dots and foray into her memory she is rewarded with an aggressive hammering inside her skull. It leaves her with a feeling of helplessness that she deeply abhors, but she has no control of it whatsoever. It's frustrating. She blinks rapidly, for she will NOT tear up before this perfect stranger. She huffs instead, cracking a smile to cover for the small shattering going on inside her core. "I don't remember you if we did"

The amount of restraint he has to exercise to not reach for her hand physically hurts. "Hope...."

"Auntie Hope---is there more potato salad?" Glory exclaims, bounding into the room with Phee close behind. Crane ruffles at the interruption and he is not mistaken to think that Glory seems rather proud of herself for the timely intrusion. Hope laughs as the girls hop up around, crowding them and helping themselves to the plate. 

"Energetic things aren't they." 

Hope smiles at his discomfort as she grabs glasses and juice for the girls. "Don't let them smell fear or they'll devour you," she teases. Crane drums his fingers nervously on the countertop, the way Glory eyes him, he doesn't doubt she has a capacity to do just that. "I mean it," she warns. "No one likes a coward, Crane" 

He knows she's jesting, but the accusation wounds deeply, for how many shades of coward had he been in this impossible fight? 

"I'm kidding." she adds a moment after when he doesn't laugh with the rest of them. "I don't know you from Adam, you could be the bravest man on earth, for all I know," 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Donovan is a contractor possessed of an inventive imagination, and over fondness for Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and all other extensive works of fantasy. Built the house they live in from ground up. Has added rooms and renovated and Faye has known three different kitchens over the course of their marriage, two living rooms, the second one he decided it would be better sunken, and heaven forbid he take it into his head that he "has a new idea to give her music room more resonance" He has obstructed her practice space at least four times through the course of their marriage in some fashion or another. New flooring. Raised the roof summer before last and then came back the following year and suggested a new design for the walls and that perhaps he should arch the ceilings. He'd been slinking around in there again, looking for something, anything to change---he likes to build and craft too, always refinishing a wall or the cabinets---and she had chased him and sketch pad and paint chips and wood chip samples out. 

All of his creations he builds---built, in his workshop. The sacred creative spot he had crafted in the backyard. The property is large, sprawling, and the unapologetic....nerd, in him, had decided to dig down and then into earth to build his workshop. Like ever loving Frodo in the Shire. She strolls the stone path he laid now deep into the yard, and then down two flights---he'd insisted on going this deep even though she warned him the terrific hazard it was if he decided to do work out here in the winter and they got a decent snow fall and finds herself at the door. The rain is pouring and wind howling and inside, there's another sound. Another unpredictable noise. Crashing and booming and that might have been glass. She takes a deep breath and puts her key in the lock.

The lock is new, they installed it after the first episode, to eliminate the possibility that one of the girls in their curiosity would come investigating out here. 

"Donovan?" she calls. 

"Faye?" 

"How you holding----" it never ceases to amaze her. The workshop was massive, great sprawling walls, usually strewn with metals and tools and tile and projects and tarps and paints and sketches, but those have all been cast aside. Instead.....instead there's this...... "My God Donovan," she searches for him, finds him seated in a corner, sweat beaded up on his brow. It's a chisel tonight, his hand clenches it like a vice. "Donny, come on, put it," 

"Watch your step," he warns, extending a hand to her. She sidesteps the shattered glass on the floor. Eyes the walls warily. She reaches him, pries the chisel from his hands. 

"You can't keep on like this Donovan, this isn't..." she cringes as she takes in the scene that starts on the wall to the left. A terrifying mural that begins with a cave. A hand thrusting up out of the earth. A beheaded man of the cloth in a cemetery. Red shattered glass makes the blood in the depiction glitter. A headless rider, with guns blazing, a man with a snapped back head and a cracked mirror. A slumping colourless horned beast lumbering through the forest. Two girls crouching in terror in a clearing, bordered by four white trees. Horrible demonic faces, explosions, chaos, glowing swords and a woman waving a gun, a shadowy tall man, long hair by her side. They appear sporadically in shadowed profiles or from behind. He started drawing these people before the last rain, when he had decided to stay in the house to fight this compulsion. 

He'd begun painting the walls in the house instead. Threw a glass against the wall and tried to stick the pieces to the wall with spit, slicing up his hands in the process, bloody hands that the girls had screamed at the sight of, clutching her in fright. 

The mural continues, images that make no sense. A dark man in uniform. A girl in a wheel chair with writhing hair. What looks like possession. A woman with brown skin, long curling hair. A hospital room, writing scribbled on the wall, the dark short woman and the taller one embracing. Fires blaze. Tunnels explode. Glass shards give depth and glitter to the renderings. Among them are symbols, hammered into the wall, whole passages with no translation, at times there's a pale finger skimming across them, as if reading along. Ancient markings, whirlwinds.A woman made of insects. Gutted bodies, plagued ones. A dark foreboding tree. A horned beast with a scorpions tale. It goes on, one terror after another. Another fresh hell and more destruction. 

It's disturbing. Horrifying. Yet he can't stop. 

When Donovan was struck by lightening he didn't wake up for a month. And when he came home, everything had seemed, more or less, fine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

April 2016

Phoenix Grace suffered from a degenerative disease of the eye. Eating away at her sight. It was moving swiftly, and by the time she was eleven, her world was glimmers and shadows. She'd known at a young age, that she would go blind, that sooner than later, the world would turn out the lights and she would live in perpetual darkness. It wasn't reversible.

Faye had followed the doctor into the adjoining room where Glory was sitting quietly in a chair and Phoenix Grace was sitting in the lap of a woman she'd never met. And Phoenix Grace had looked at her with bright and clear eyes, blinking hard, absorbing her surroundings. Drinking in colour and shapes and the face of the stranger she was sitting with.

"Who are you?" Faye had demanded. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Six Months Later September

And when Donovan had come home, he was told he had a sister. 

That Phoenix Grace could now miraculously see.

And a storm struck his first week back, while he was sawing away in the workshop and Faye was with him because she helps sometimes with upholstery. And his eyes lit up with white light, the visions struck, and Donovan began painting, carving and filling these walls with a violent, at time glorious at times beautiful, confounding history. A man possessed, moving with the speed and precision of a savant. 

He meets her gaze now, looking haunted. He's told her before that she doesn't have to come down to see him like this, but she insists that she fears he'll harm himself in the frenzy. That he might mistake his own flesh for the wall and start carving and painting these images on himself. 

The rate he's going he'll start on the ceiling soon. "Are you okay to come inside?"

Donovan shakes his head, gripping her hand in his, kissing her knuckles before he gestures to the wall. Faye swallows. "As soon as the storm passes Faye. And then....then I'm getting answers." 

"This is more than just a family friend visiting isn't it." 

The latest addition to Donovan's grandiose disturbing masterpiece is the face of Ichabod Crane. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~  
On his way back from the bathroom a crack of light from outside illuminates the hall where he passes, catches his eye on one of the photos hung in the wall. Hope and the girls are still laughing and eating in the kitchen. He draws nearer to the picture to inspect it and furrows his brow. He keeps moving, finding the same abnormality in each frame.

There's the faintest shift in the shading around Hope in these family portraits. 

Crane draws a singular conclusion. "These photos have been tampered with."


	5. Chapter 5

Crane reaches out one elegant finger to touch the photo he's currently paused in front of. Equal parts curiosity and wonder flit through his brain. Hope is not a part of these photos nor this family, he's sure of it. This confirms his suspicions---the truth he has known since he arrived earlier today, that MUST be Abbie. But it doesn't explain why this family has so readily taken her in as their own, and why she seems oblivious to the ruse. The padding of footsteps stills his hand and he cocks his ear, listening. When the noise subsides he continues down the hall, peers into the kitchen to find it empty and instead hears the dull hum of the television on too low. When he pokes his head in the living room Hope is there, with her legs curled up beneath her skirt, head propped on the palm of her hand as she leans on the arm rest of the couch. He pauses, clenching and unclenching his hands, wrestling with the desire to start demanding explanations. 

First of all being. If it's you in there Abbie, why did you come HERE and not return to me? back in Sleepy Hollow? 

Unless perhaps this is the new order of things, and she's meant to enjoy a life now that was robbed from her before. Perhaps this is to be her reward for her sacrifice; a fresh start. With no prophecies and no demons and a family that embraces and loves her, how ever odd they may be, whatever secrets they may keep, because it is a certain thing to Crane, that there is something amiss where Donovan is concerned--besides him being the new Witness, a conversation he still has to have with the man---but Faye is covering for it, he's sure. And Glory……something about the girl makes his skin prickle, her defensive and wary nature, as if she would greatly appreciate if he went away. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and thinks the hardest thought there is to ponder. 

It just might be, that this time, she's meant to have a life without him. 

He draws a breath and considers making a subtle break for upstairs but her voice rings out as he turns around. 

"Hey." 

Crane stills, breathing deeply. He ought to pretend he didn't hear. 

The girls had started yawning while Crane had excused himself and had almost enthusiastically carried themselves off to bed. She'd put the dishes in the sink and had settled on the couch, turned on the television. Staring at the screen but not watching. 

She must be insane, must have a desire to court trouble. Her brother stepped out the house, wife with him and she's alone with a virtual stranger and two young girls upstairs but the trepidation and readiness to launch an assault should he pose a threat is absent. Instead there lies an insistent and stubborn feeling of calm, comfort. 

An innate trust. 

Which makes no sense at all. She wishes for a full conversation that might make sense of this, so all she can say is, hoping he hasn't already ducked upstairs in that quiet beat is; "Come here and talk to me" 

She ticks her gaze to the doorway, waiting, her breathing slow, until she sees him stride into view. He watches her, as if mustering nerve before stepping down into the living room, crossing the floor and sitting opposite on the couch. 

"Ahh," he says, settling in. He makes a show of peering around the room. "Where are the Misses Glory and Phoenix Grace?"

"Claimed fatigue." she answers quietly. "Visitors and thunderstorms, guess its overwhelmed them."

"You wished to talk, Miss Hope?"

She wrinkles her nose. "You're very proper." 

"Manners and respect."

"Good home training." she nods with approval. Outside the rain beats down relentlessly, like an open faucet. "Rains too much out here, I don't know how they can stand it. I need sun, dry days. Weather like this….puts the house in a weird mood. Donovan takes up outside in is workshop and Faye goes out with him. To keep him company I guess. And I'm here, with the girls." she smiles sadly. "They're close," she whispers appreciatively. "The way sisters should be. Where one goes the other follows, look out for each other. I….hah…I sometimes feel….." like I have a sister, or had one. But that's nonsense. Because it's only ever been me and Donny. Only sibling I have. 

"Sometimes feel, what?"

"Never mind me," she laughs but it's without mirth, waving him off. "I'm not all there any more than the rest of them here. Tell me about you. You weren't born here were you? America I mean."

"I was not," he concedes. "I came over…..a while ago. Needed a…..change of scenery."

"And you chose Sleepy Hollow?"

For lack of a better word. "Yes"

"You had family there? or just, struck off on your own?"

I had a wife, who was a witch. You thwarted her attempt to murder me when you travelled back in time---and a son that I shot, when they had us sequestered in townhall---a likely story. "No family. A….lone wolf, you might say."

"How did you meet the Mills?"

Sheriff Corbin, your mentor, then, was beheaded and I was brought in as suspect. You came to me in the jail cell. I was glad your people had been emancipated. I was fascinated you were a lieutenant. I was confounded that a woman should so brazenly wear trousers and ahh….here we are, his eyes sweep over her, she's a polar opposite and exact contrast to their first encounter. 

Then she was business like, a woman of the law, uniform, straight sleek hair, duty above all. Trousers and boots and leather jackets. 

Here she seems, less structured. Skirts and hells and her natural springy hair, and he doesn't like to say so, but no clear purpose besides looking after her nieces. A domestic if not drastic contrast. Yet there lies an energy to her, a thrum, as if given the chance to something, anything, she would take it. She wants concrete, and currently she seems to be adrift. But is that merely the burden of a past that forced her to harden and fight and grow old before she was young? 

For there were so few glimpses of this, at ease and casual woman, then. 

"Crane?" she snaps a finger in front of his face, looking amused. 

So quick to smile this one. Outright more jovial and quick to confide. Because she is more trusting now? or because, some part of her, on a distant plane, feels the connection, knows that they have in fact known each other before? 

"I beg your pardon M--"

"Hope." she insists. "No Miss this and Miss that, you call me Hope. I won't think you respect me any less"

How many times had Abbie demanded the same thing but he'd stuck to his ways, as if his rigid hold on titles and propriety had meant anything at all in the end, for she had gone out the world, with a sense, perhaps of his deep care, but never the words to bind it. Would he retrace those same steps now? Would he walk that same path all over again, tip toeing around her?

Were you a selfless man you would leave first thing in the morning, kidnap Donovan if need be, and let her have this second chance at life he berates himself. But Ichabod Crane is not many of the things he once believed himself to be. Smart---hadn't she cracked Franklin's code? out of BOREDOM? Brave---need he delve into that whole again? 

"Hope," he says, voice low and wrapping around the short syllable and her eyes twinkle at him. 

"I want you to tell me something," she whispers, leaning in conspiratorially and Crane leans in just a bit too. 

"Anything,"

She stomps down on the fluttering that kicks up in her chest. He speaks in promises and vows. All of his words sound like they come with ancient history and honour and duty. "I want you to tell me how on EARTH did you survive school with a name like Ichabod Crane," 

He's not sure what he expected her to ask but it shocks a chuckle out of him and they both descend into laughter. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Outside Donovan still paints, he'd had a moment of reprieve from the drive but another crash of thunder and shock of light had spurred him again. Faye watches in horrified awe. Now that he fully rendered the face of their house guest he rambles on once more. The same man caught in coffin with vines twining around him, glass fragmenting and shattering and a shadow figured man, glasses glinting in darkness. He goes back to earlier parts of the mural sometimes, adding bits he's forgotten, this part fits in somewhere along the second wall. Hands, one pale, one dark, reaching toward the other. He paints Crane again, clutching a woman to his body. He paints a red headed woman for the first time, a green glinting stone. A giant bell. He works away tirelessly.

When Donovan had slept that month Faye had spent the time worrying over her husband, wondering, if, when he would wake up, and compounded with the bizarre circumstance of a blind daughter who now could see---puzzling herself and the doctors in equal measure and the woman who had apparently dialled 911 while the girls were panicking at the lake.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
April 2016

"Who are you?" 

The woman had met her gaze with steady considerate eyes, eyes that, she trembled to think, resembled those of Phoenix Grace. She'd taken in the woman's appearance then. Dressed in a white gown that seemed something from a century past. If not more. Curly tendrils still damp from the rain, but a distinctly different smell….a clear yet murky one surrounding her too. 

"I'm Hope" she'd answered simply, matter of fact, as if the utterance of the name should mean something to her. 

"What are you doing here, Phee, come here," but her daughter had not seemed inclined to move out of Hope's embrace. She kept looking at her in fact. 

"I'm Donny's sister. Used to go by Abigail." 

"Donny doesn't---" she started but then the thought had faltered. This woman, whoever she claimed to be, had rescued her husband and children. "Thank you," she says instead. "Donovan, he never mentioned having a sister," 

She'd shrugged. "Haven't been around much to be honest."

"Where were you before? did he know you were coming back in town?" 

Hope opened her mouth to answer and then had let out an ear splitting scream. That was when the headaches started. 

They'd given had to pry Phee from her lap then and take her down to run some tests. They all stayed there the first night with Donovan, and then she had taken her new found sister in law---where she believed the story or not at this point in time remained to be seen, and had gotten her set up in her room. 

She'd made the mistake of asking the following morning at breakfast "How did you know they were at the lake? what took you there?" and had been rewarded by Hope nearly passing out in the kitchen. So it went, strange things would trigger her into these rather aggressive migraines, for the whole month while Donovan lay in his electrified slumber Hope became more and more part of the house.

She might have even begun to truly believe she was family. And if she wasn't by blood, she was by heart. Hope fit in, surprisingly, the girls loved her, they got along, and she'd grown attached to the woman was helping her keep the household together while she visited her husband and Mother Cece up at the house. She'd taken Hope with her once, a subconscious test. Surely if anyone could vouch for having another grandchild it would be the great great grandmother herself. 

Cecilia had looked Hope over, grasped her hand and looked warmly into her face. "She's ours. Don't ask me how but there's something of Ezra in her, guess Mills people have stubborn genes."

Donovan had demanded a DNA test when he woke, unexpectedly, all four of them keeping vigil in the room. Had looked at Hope and backed himself into the bed so hard it had rattled and his heart rate had spikes, eyes wide in terror. 

"Who" he pointed, one hand trembling. "Who" he demanded, levering that accusing finger at Hope.

"Your…sister. Donovan. She's….she's come to stay with us a while." even as she says it she knows it doesn't sound right. But she cleared Cecilia's inspection and she shares a resemblance with Phee, their own daughter, and she feels like family, how can she say that? she feels like something has brightened, just a little in their lives since her arrival.

Maybe because since she got her Phee's circumstance has changed so drastically. But Donovan had regarded her with petrified terror and no matter how Faye had prodded he seemed unable to tell her what exactly had so spooked him about his sister, Hope.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
September 2016

But he adjusted quickly enough, and now he's just as attached to Hope as the rest of the family is. Looks out for her, especially since the DNA had proven "Sure as the sunrise she's one of yours" he'd said, dumbstruck. They'd tested him and Mother Cece with a swab from Hope. But every now and again he watches her a little strange, as if he expects her to not be who she claims to be. 

Now of all nights, as he paints and paints, she thinks he won't stop, the more it rains the more he sketches and hammers, there are english words appearing now, he leaps from one side of the room to the other, adding in things he's seemingly forgotten and only remembers during this stormy frenzy. Bible verses. But then he'll become distracted and change to somewhere else. It's a story she knows, he's trying to tell her something through this. 

Whatever, affliction this is, she knows it's changed her husband, something happened that day at the lake that would change all of their lives and she finds herself hoping, and fearing, that this art work will tell her what it is. The fact that the face of their visitor has now joined the artistic fray her fills her with unease. Something beyond them has come to their door step. Something they cannot understand has drawn Ichabod Crane, here.

And then Donovan at last paints the answer to the question he so often refused.

And her blood runs cold. 

Then the storm stops.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They'd somehow managed to discuss Ichabod's childhood without him giving away that he wasn't born this century. And without her speaking of her own childhood at all. She doesn't know quite how to say she doesn't remember much before the six months she's spent reunited with her family. 

They laugh about his stories, and the ones she can tell about Glory and Phee getting up to mischief. About how Faye has a quartet she plays with in town, and how Donovan isn't happy unless he's creating something. 

"What about you, Miss--apologies, Hope. What gives you joy?"

"To tell you the truth, I love a lot of things. My family, singing, I think I'm a decent cook, and I like to garden…..but I don't always feel very, sure. I guess I'm at a sort of life stage plateau. Guess that's why I ended back up here. Trying to find myself again. What I stand for, what makes me tick." 

He allows himself, at this moment, to be more forward than he's ever been, and rests his hand on hers. She considers shaking him off but doesn't bother with the pretence of it. She's comfortable with this man that she only met today, something about him clicks….and for the first time in these past few months, in spite of what she just told him, she does, in fact, feel very sure about something. About him. It's okay. A voice whispers, before a pain starts creeping in. She'd dare say these have started getting worse in the few hours he's been here. 

"I was lost once," he murmurs softly. "But someone found me and---" he chokes up, takes a breath and nearly loses control again when Hope clasps her hand on top of his. "Someone found me and gave me meaning, gave me purpose. Filled my life with….laughter and disagreements and---"

skinny jeans and starbucks

"----hope. Something to believe in. I hope, I wish for you to have that."

Hope listens to him, entirely swallowed up by his voice filled with emotion and the eyes gone misty and wistful. Were he alone he might cry. "You were in love, weren't you," 

He looks down at her small dark hands wrapped around his, meets her eyes. Please he thinks, I know you're in there Abbie. Hear me, please.

"I still am."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We find out what Donovan painted last and showed to Faye. 
> 
> We learn exactly how Abbie/Hope ended up with the Doves. 
> 
> There's a.....misunderstanding. 
> 
> thanks every one who's been reading! comments are candy! lol ^.^

Blue gazes into brown.

Two hearts hammer.

She doesn't pull away. Licks her lips and breathes deeply, letting the words echo and bang around in her head. If she didn't know better she'd think he meant her. But he does, her brain retorts and a dull pounding, like drums coming over the hills in a distance starts in her ears. Impossible as it is, she thinks on some level he really does mean her. He reaches up a hand to the side of her face and she doesn't flinch. He tucks a tendril behind her ear, and she doesn't blink. 

He leans in and she waits with baited breath. 

Maybe I AM crazy after all, She thinks. As the drum roll increases, because she really is considering letting this happen, whatever this is. But maybe he's not well either. She gets the sense that Ichabod Crane is unusual, just as much as she is, as her family. And maybe, some off set of whatever weird condition he suffers from, makes him mistake women he's just met for the one he loves. Some sort of after effect. Post traumatic stress. "Crane?" she says feebly, questioning, because even at this point she's not sure if she wants him to back away or to come closer and commit this certain act of lunacy. 

His thumb sweeps across her cheek, staring into the depths of her eyes, searching. 

This is desperation, he knows it, after all this is not a fairy tale told at his mother's knee. He can't think a kiss will solve this. He can't go through with it either, no matter how strong the desire is now to press his lips to hers, he remembers she is compromised, vulnerable. But he can see her in there, he just needs HER to remember that she's in there too. "Leftenant?" he calls.

A feeling like a ton of bricks smashes into the side of her skull, whipping her head to the side and knocking her off the couch, hands slipping from his as she lands on the floor, quaking, shivering, hands buried in her hair. "Hope!" he exclaims, dropping to the floor gripping her face in his hands. "Hope! no, no, Hope, Hope, what's happened?" 

But her answers are moans and whimpers. He moves to cradle her in his arms when the back door slams open violently. Faye takes in the scene for all of half a second before she's on her knees beside the rocking bundle on the floor. 

"Hope?" she cries. "Hope? hon?" she notices Crane's proximity and pitches him away, hugging Hope close to her body. "Get away from her!" she screams. "Hope? What did you do to her?"

Crane fumbles to explain, horror settling in his bones as he realizes they think he's harmed Hope. And by the way she continues to shiver---severely. He begins to edge away before Donovan drapes him up by the collar, hauls him staggering from the room. "Master Dove"

"Master my ass!" he roars. "I knew there was something about you when you showed up today and now it's clear. You stay the hell away from my family. "

"I haven't done…. ANYTHING…to threaten you"

"I know what you did to Hope. I know what I saw, I can show you the proof of it."

His disbelief swiftly turns to outrage. "And what did you SEE" Crane demands, finding the resolve to begin giving Donovan a proper struggle. A surprising burst enables him to wrestle free, throwing the man off him. 

"I know that you tried to kill her, and I'm not going to let you harm her any more"

"What in God's name is wrong with you!" Crane bellows. 

Faye keeps trying to soothe Hope but she bats her hands away. Her head feels like someone throwing themselves against the door, jamming a key that doesn't fit stubbornly and ruthlessly into a lock. But she can hear the commotion, the wild accusation, and it disorients her. Is it possible she does know this man after all? That he has harmed her?

Had he gained her trust once only to do her injury? 

Was he back now to finish whatever wicked thing he had started?

"Donovan Dove!" Crane shouts. "I have NO idea what you're talking about! The idea that you would accuse me of harming her--- I, I"M NOT THE ONE TAMPERING WITH FAMILY PHOTOS AROUND HERE TO MAKE HER THINK SHE BELONGS"

"Leftenant, leftenant," repeats in Hope's brain, battling around and around. A malicious echo. It's in her head, she thinks, mind reeling even as she pitches out of Hope's arms in her fit. It's always in her head. There's no one here with you, you're imagining things, you've made this up. A flash of a wall with strange symbols flickers in her vision. "Leftenant" She wants out of this hell, out of this room that keeps echoing when no one speaks. These same stone walls and the same stoic sun hanging in the sky and chess pieces of stone and---the pain is staggering. Her mind is rent in two. She doesn't know where these images come from, but they're not hers. Are they? could they be? Who is he and what has he done to her? 

"I'M NOT THE ONE WHO TRIED TO DROWN---"

"DROWN?! " he exclaims before Donovan throws a punch in his jaw, wraps his fist in Crane's shirt and the struggle continues out the front door, leaving it banging behind them. 

Mist, like a fog rushes through her vision. Closing around her. Tugging. Come, it whispers, come. And she looks back, and she calls to him, this man, and then she is nothing.

Hope goes limp in Faye's arms. 

Faye's eyes widen and her stomach drops. No. "Hope? HOPE" 

Upstairs feet shuffle and she looks upstairs, forces cheer into her voice. "Go back to sleep!" she calls. "Everything is fine girls, go back to bed!" no answer, she watches to see if they will pad down the stairs to discover their aunt splayed in her arms. "Please go back to sleep," she murmurs fervently, like a prayer. "Please, please, please"

The silence that follows gives her small comfort. She puts her head to her chest. Still breathing "Thank God," rests her hand on her forehead and shudders. She'd wanted to know how Hope came to be among them, and maybe it had been a too frightening thing for Donovan to speak, so he'd shown her. "Come on Hope, wake up. Come on," she pleas, cradling her. "You're safe here, I've got you. We won't let him hurt you."

The pulverizing pain subsides and leaves behind his kind eyes looking at her so tenderly moments before. Hope is still too weak to protest. Too weak to break free of Faye's hold. 

Theres a blank space in her mind. And she was beginning to foolishly think Crane might have some connection to it. 

And now they're telling her he's dangerous. A hazard to her well being, her life.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

April 2016

"Well our days cut short. Sorry girls. Come on, let's pack up." and Donovan and had headed for the car when the rain started, lightly sprinkling then. Glory and Phee were still by a tree near the waters edge. Glory watching the little droplets make rings when they fell in the water, and Phee, head tilted, listening to the rush of the water and thunder rolling in the distance. She remembers what the lake used to look like, before darkness descended on her. Remembers where the trees were and the rocks you could skip out on, where the earth dips into a muddy trap. She doesn't see any of that now, not any more. But she still enjoys the air, the feel of grass between her fingers and toes and the sound of her sisters laughter as she sits down beside her to read aloud. Holding hands on the blanket while their father would dig out the sandwiches he'd packed. Typically silent outings save for Glory's spirited narration. Time for father and daughters to just exist in nature. They're a little vexed with the weather now, ruining their day, they don't come out as often since their father has started getting so many contracts. 

So of course, they lag behind a little longer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What Corbin had failed to truly clarify, what Ezra didn't truly understand, what even She, had failed to comprehend is that an"eternal soul" has very little to do with her soul actually choosing a new host, so much as crafting, rebuilding, the old one. 

Rising from it's own ashes anew. 

She may have lived many lives, but she has always come back fully intact. Same form. Same soul. Same basic innate traits. Oh one time around she might have been a queen, another a wily maid, another a dancer, a writer, a teacher, doctor, activist, soldier, an officer of the law, but always in the same blood line. Always in time to rejoin her partner. Her last demise she had caught a fever, mere days before Ichabod Crane was given his bewitched death. Both absent from the world until it called upon them.

And when the universe heard the herald of incoming doom, she'd been born, raised and given the hardships to prepare her for the role she would inherit. The one her soul had the might and mettle for, even though her mind, had struggled with it. That has varied depending on the life she lived. Sometimes she has been more willing that others to believe her destiny. She was there to meet that partner she'd missed last time, Ichabod Crane. And they would have lived this life and perished, together. 

As they had done, years before, lifetimes before, never more than a week between IF by some mishap one had been left behind. To reunite, when the summons came to fight once more. 

She should have had another couple years, if not hundreds, to rest and meet again, but he had lived. Had defied the typical window of expiration. For some reason he is more stubborn or stupid this lifetime. Or for the first time someone has TOLD him the nature of their souls. So he had hung on to life---thwarted their own natural order--that in itself, him still standing, had called for a quicker return than usual. 

Because there must always be two. 

But something went wrong with the process, this last time. She's been destroyed many ways, but never had she been contained and then obliterated in a container as powerful, unwieldily and unpredictable as that cursed box. 

The explosion had disrupted her energy. The power it unleashed in its destruction disturbed the spirit realm and that storm had done no favours. Her course was set, as it were, ashes had been cast out and travelled on the wave of current and energy down into the tranquil depths of the lake, reforming, re shaping, but the otherworldly force of the box had ignited that unnatural storm, and threw her eternal soul off course. 

Splintered it. 

Half here, and half not.

Half returned home to the vessel of her body.

The other half a bolt striking Donovan Dove. 

She had risen, as a phoenix does, dressed in the gown of an ancestor--that too a mishap in her travels, a collision with Grace that had left the woman sporting her jacket and boots instead.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
April 2016

She had been Grace, when she gave herself to the world, benevolent, loving. She was Fortune once, luck had been on their side in their battles. 

Victory, for every death they suffered, was in the end to be victorious. 

Triumph, because they rose above. 

Love, because she would love the world too much, and him besides, and him her, that they would willingly, unflinchingly march toward their fate. 

And this last time Hope. 

To give the world, an inkling of reserve, to look forward. To believe in impossible things.

Each life, she sheds her old name to become the new. She keeps Abigail because her soul is rather fond of it. Most of the time. This time she becomes Hope and returns as such, and the sight of her, floating to the surface, in the midst of that rain that had come on slow at first, turning vicious in its torrents, had scared the girls. Had released from Glory a terrible shriek. 

And Phoenix Grace had turned toward the sound, toward the lake, the water bubbling around her as she rose, and the light from her had been so blinding, it had assaulted her shuttered, unseeing eyes. The Holy glow of the Lord's ordained soldier blazed away the disease, burned away all darkness, lifted her spirit with such ferocity it had scalded and her small body hardly could withstand the pain. 

She had looked upon Hope embodied. 

And had been healed.

She had been blind, and by the Grace of God, He had given them, literally, Hope. And now, she could see. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
September 2016

Donovan and Crane fight and struggle around the back of the house. Donovan keeps raging, dragging him. "What I don't understand is, why bother to dress her up? and why you came here, to finish her off? is that it bastard?"

"Are you going to kill me out here?" Crane bites back venomously. "Because it seems a great deal more trouble to you."

Donovan growls and shoves him down the steps he would have otherwise missed, squeezes past him to unlock the workshop door and pitches Crane inside.

"My word,"

It's every moment of his journey with Abbie. From the moment he woke---to when she went back to 1781---the catacombs---Headless---the Irvings---Katrina and Henry---Serilda---Moloch---Purgatory---Pandora. He flinches at the rendering of the box and the explosion that follows, quakes at the sight of his face, Franklins code scrawled and hammered into the walls, the demon script Jenny had written when she'd been possessed by the Eye. But the last image he doesn't understand. Has never seen until now, this would explain it, he supposes. He would have drawn similar conclusions.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

April 2016

When Donovan had reached the girls he couldn't make sense of Phoenix Grace's wailing, she wouldn't look at him, he was oblivious to the pain she was experiencing, the miracle of her eyes being opened again. But Glory's wailing had demanded his attention and he had looked upon her then. Before her fragmented being had struck him. There she had been, breaking the surface of the lake. Face peaceful and serene. Lips a pale blue. Stiff limbs.

Billowing dress, and leaves and flowers from the lake twining in her hair, she had floated up to the surface of the water.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
September 2016

Crane's knees buckle. 

"That's how I found her," Donovan hisses. "Before my accident, that's where my daughters found her after what you tried to do" 

Crane shakes his head vehemently.

Small wonder then, why Donovan had been so petrified when he'd awoken to find Hope among his family. For the first time he'd laid eyes on her, she was laying in the lake. 

Like a beautiful enchanted corpse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just curious. anyone want to see any of the past lives I mention here? 
> 
> Like when she was Fortune, or Victory or Triumph? it would probably only be one chapter in here, no guarantees, but I'm open to suggestions :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pick up with Donovan and Crane having a talk about that mural.
> 
> Flashbacks of Abbie's past life as Fortune.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um. So I got lazy as far as depicting an exact era in history or country. Sorry about that. I'm not a research person, not really. But I had this idea for how they would have met before and I couldn't help it. 
> 
> It stands to reason Crane has had other names too, yes? 
> 
> shout out to nathyfaith for inspirtation!

"I know what this looks like," Crane begins, index fingers in the air. "but it's not, what it looks like. I did NOT do that to Abbie---Hope"

"That's another thing, Crane," he growls. " What connection do you have to the Mills, really?"

Crane flings his arm to the wall. "Why don't you tell me? you've painted my life story, or more accurately 'Hope's on these walls." Seeing these events rendered in such brilliant detail enrages him. There are moments here, ones of fright, ones of desolation, victory, friendship and kinship and war and blood shed and betrayals. And her. Him and Abbie, he sees his arms locked around her when he'd found her in Purgatory---they feel like a stark violation. 

"These, these events were never meant for your eyes. Not your memories to keep"

"You're gonna tell me, right now, TONIGHT. Why I found Hope in that Lake."

Crane rakes his hands through his hair in frustration. "I don't know! I wasn't even expecting to see her again so soon," and realizing a second too late what he's said. 

"Again?" Donovan advances. "You admit then you HAVE met her before"

"If you'll admit that you know as well as I do, that Hope is NOT your sister and you've been concealing the fact."

"Are you sick, Crane? is that it? Obsessed with her? an abusive boyfriend? who knows how long you've been chasing her and at last you catch up with her, and you, you decide this is the last time she's getting away from you, if you can't have her no one else will, and you….you dress her up and put her in the water---"

"This accusation is absurd, and if you mean to do me harm, let's have at it then, I will not stand this villainy any longer." Witness or no, he will throttle Donovan for this implication. The idea that he could hurt her makes his ears hot. 

"Then you explain it to me then! I start painting you tonight and then I finally managed to paint that scene at the lake---a scarring thing to see, a woman rising to the water. And I was in a comma for a month and when I wake up, my wife tells me my 'sister' has come to stay and I know for a fact I was an only child. But we test her against Mother Cece and myself before she passed and Hope checks out. We're blood. But I don't know how she got here, only that I came in tonight and she was having the worst attack yet and you're the only one there with her. You connect the dots."

"You've yet to explain to me how you have seen, any of these things," Crane spits. "Unless you are naturally predisposed to apocalyptic imagery of this accuracy?"

The other man stills. "Accuracy." he says, then repeats it. "….Accuracy. Wait, Crane, are you…who the hell are you."

"I am one of the Witnesses of Revelations. And so was Abbie….I'm…I'm sure that's her in there."

"My, cousin?" Donovan blinks, marching towards him Crane backs up, tripping over a hammer on the ground. Donovan's hand snakes out to steady him. "You know how she died. You were there."

"Apparently so were you," Crane grunts, pointing to the wall. "You've depicted it perfectly." 

Donovan sweeps his eyes over the mural, Crane still firmly in his grasp. "You mean this is real. All of this."

"From the horseman to that box. From Benjamin Franklin's code to the passages your cousin Jenny wrote when she was consumed by the power of the eye." Crane pauses to note the way Donovan's mouth hangs slightly open in awe. "Yes. You have another cousin still. And Ezra. The last of the Mills in Sleepy Hollow."

"You're trying to tell me you're on a biblical quest."

"I AM. And YOU'RE going to join me in it, Master Dove. Because….Hope's….Abbie's….." he pinches the bridge of his nose. 

Donovan huffs and releases Ichabod so abruptly he stumbles and falls. "Damn it. She knew, we didn't believe her but she tried to explain. But, how, how."

"Master Dove?"

"Mother Cece." he works his mouth. "I didn't want to believe it when she'd said so. I didn't understand what she meant but I get it now….and I'm in the wrong role."

"I'm convinced you're being deliberately obtuse."

"We're gonna have to go visit Winnie." he concludes, and begins heading for the door. "Well are you coming?"

"Why are we going to visit Winnie? it's an indecent hour to call."

Donovan glares at him over his shoulder. "No time for propriety, Crane. There's something there I think we can use. To make sense of this."

"What sense is left? You're next up to take the torch, to--"

"I'm not supposed to Witness, Crane."

He follows Donovan as he heads for the car, flings his side open and Crane clambers in beside him. "None of us are naturally inclined toward this duty, but you must embrace it as your ancestors have done"

"That's where you're wrong. We're not all magically meant for this, there's just the one, has been for years, and if its true…I should have paid better attention." he throws the car in gear. "Mother Cece used to say we all have jobs in this world, we all have a calling, a purpose, a duty. Some bring joy, some keep peace. Some fight the wars. And there are different ranks to that. All I know is if this is all true, this is wrong. Just all wrong." he barrels along the road, a more reckless driver than Crane and he finds himself getting queasy. 

"If what you say is true. If the visions I've been seeing are real events, and Hope…is Abbie, that's what you're saying right, then what I'm experiencing, what I've 'become' is wrong."

"And how did you draw this conclusion?"

"Crane, I'm supposed to be a Keeper. To protect and fight beside this incarnation. Not become it."   
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The Life of Fortune

King Ro's skin beads with a fine film of sweat. There is a smoke emanating from his pores, and an undeniable stink permeates his chambers. The rot came swiftly. Years of courting the dark arts at last seem to be taking their toll on him. He has slaughtered villages, fearful for their multitude. He has raided homes, killing wives and mothers, pilfering their children and turning them into his slaves, his ill prepared army. 

They fall when there is war. 

He has enough power to smite his enemies on his own but it reduces his own strength; and he does not deem the lives of his subjects great enough to deplete himself. He is a tyrant, the son of a first benevolent ruler and who begrudged his father's love and care toward the citizens. Despised his soft heart when their colony was so strong. He wanted to march on the other kingdoms, to force them to bend their knees but his father had been content with what he had, the fool. He has been the youngest of four. Two elder sons and a daughter---his first, truth be told, sired by an ebony woman in the village when he had been a young man. He had loved her but royal duty did not favour a union with someone beneath his station. 

He had looked upon his daughter once, when she had been born, before giving her mother money he had snuck away from the treasury and begged her to flee, "Luck be with you" he'd whispered, kissing her forehead. They ran as far as they could.

Ro's brothers were felled by war and sickness, young, in their prime. And when he rose, when he took the crown he vowed to be stronger than them. To rule with the hardened fist his father had failed to. To conquer lands. To let none defeat him. He wanted domination. He wanted immortality. 

He was a monster. He had summoned the handsomest men in the land to have their best features carved from their faces. He let them bleed and scream in terror as he threw them in his enchanted well, and his advisor, a slithery man known as the Snake, who whispered to the devils in his name, coaxed them into a mask of perfection and laid it upon his King's face. 

If the men survived, they were turned to slaves. Amusements for his brute soldiers. 

He made wives of wedded women, slaughtering their husbands and prior children should they disagree. Some even if he didn't. 

And when he came upon anyone remaining of his line, he smote them. He had not spared his nieces and nephews. No uncle or cousin, and certainly no aunt had been safe. 

But when he'd heard he had a sister, one who had lived so long, one who had born children in the darkest corner of land, hoping she could hide---he determined to find her. 

And he did. Her daughter, his cousin, had given birth the night they came. She had been born in the still of night, stars twinkling so bright. 

The babe had screamed, instead of crying. For she had Seen the men coming their way. Had known this glimpse of her mother would be her last. 

Her name had been on her mother's dying breath. 

"Fortune."   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"Bring her in"

The Snake, the king's chief advisor, even bent and old and wicked objects to bringing in outsiders, but even trickery has its limits. For all his parts in implementing horror and torture to the benefit of the king, he did not master healing. 

Healing takes care. 

Heart.

For which the Snake had none. So his king now ails. Corrupted from the inside. They call for the Seer. A true wonder that she lived, after all this time. Through all of the sweeps of violence this King has visited on his people. They call her for the king wants news. Whispers among his court suggest a rival will soon march on his borders. He had cut out their tongues for speaking it, but in his depleted state he seeks council and finds the Snake has little to offer. 

Years of service and dark secrets alone, restrain him from killing this man. He may still have use to him yet, and he has never permitted another sorcerer to train under the Snake. 

The guards swing open the door and the one, a strikingly tall man, pale as first sliver of dawn, with his damning blue eyes--quick wit and obedience alone has kept him alive until now. 

The king on more than one occasion has coveted his eyes.

He casts his blue gaze on the woman who comes through the doors. She turns her head his way and he startles. One of her eyes is brown, a warm, beckoning thing. But the other, it shines, sparkles, dazzles bright, like a star, until she blinks and it goes black as night, and he notices a crude scar around the socket. Her back is hunched, and her hair hangs just past her ear. She holds a staff. Her mouth curls into a sneer and she marches past him. 

"Seer" The king croaks, and the guard nearest holds his breath. The darkness carries even when he speaks. He would not be the first to die of contamination from inhaling near the king. 

"They call me Fortune," she answers, voice surprisingly strong, clear and regal. The shock of it incites whispers from the assembly of the kings wives and eldest children. Even the guard, raises a quizzical brow at the strength of it. 

The king cracks a crude smile. "Fortune," he hisses. "Come closer and See for me. Who threatens my dominion?"

"No greater threat than the one who lies in this bed," she replies smoothly. "No greater evil than the one before me."

"How have you lived long enough to insult me" the king inquires, although he sounds amused by her spirit, it comes from perhaps a proven theory that he can squash and kill spirit at will. He can demand her head after this, if it suits him. "Tell me, Seer, how I may conquer those who would rise against me. How may I regain strength."

She blinks hard and when she opens her eyes, the one of pitch black night sparkles again. "He will rot in this bed." she decrees. "Fortune does not smile upon him." 

The guard bedside moves to strike her for her insolence and then crashes to his knees, cradling his hand, screaming at the sight of his severed fingers in a pool of blood on the tile. She pauses a moment to clean the blood off the near blade before stowing it away. "It starts inside. It cannot be cured." the crowd rears back when she turns to them, that starry eye blazing and spooking them in equal measure as she hobbles back the way she came. The blue eyed guard follows behind her. 

The king snarls. "She is an ill tempered lunatic. Bring me the man who brought her here. He will pay for the waist of my time. Someone clean up this mess."

In the corridor the guard attempts to corner her. "What you have spoken is treason."

"He betrayed mankind years ago when he took the throne and sought powers greater than himself to defy the laws of man." 

He side steps quickly in front of her, almost shields himself from the unnatural blaze of that eye. "You overstep your station."

"Yet you lower yourself to mine," she spits back, voice full of fury she brushes past him towards the door. "Guard" she hisses.

"Seer. They call you Fortune and yet you bend over as if life has beaten you down."

She straightens then, squaring her shoulders the cloak she was wearing falls to the floor and he notices the curve of muscle on her arms and the strength in her back. Her infirmity a ruse, nothing more. "I have been lucky enough to live through many terrors," she casts a glance over her shoulder. "And I shall live to see him die."   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
September 2016

"What do you mean, Keeper?"

"Could you shut up a damn minute and let me focus on driving Crane? Can barely get a word in edgewise with you."

"The leftenant never minded."

"The who?--Abbie. You mean Abbie. Damn. It." he hits the steering wheel. "This is a mess. I….this…..it'll be in her books. I'm sure of it."

"Have you suspected? have you known all this time?"

"Cece…..people think she was living because she was too stubborn to die---not untrue mind you---but she said something to me not long before Hope, Abbie…She, turned up here. She said it again before she died."

"What, exactly."

"I'm sure you believe half the things you hear, and if this is all true, then there's something….special about our family."

"Besides a predisposition to names like Glory and Phoenix Grace?"

"I don't know where you're going with this."

"You've named your children as transcendentals. It seems the family can't help it."

"Well I think you've just answered your own question Crane. But that doesn't change the fact that I need something from Winnie."

"I'm afraid you've lost me."

"Well stay lost till we get to the house alright because your chatter is giving me a headache. Wake up this morning like any other day and tonight I'm running around with this damn man telling me I'm a Witness." he grumbles to himself in disbelief. 

"Says the man now telling me he's a 'Keeper'" Crane retorts hotly. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Hope blinks her eyes open and finds Faye looming above her. "Faye?" she croaks, head still banging. 

"I'm here. How are you feeling."

Hope quirks a brow at her. "You wanna hazard a guess?"

Faye blushes and helps her to her feet. She wavers once she's standing but determines to level herself out. Still gripping Faye's arms she speaks. "Where's Donny? Crane?"

"Hope, now's not the time to get yourself riled up again,"

"If he's gone out there to murder the man you're gonna lose a husband and I'm gonna lose a brother and those girls up there a father," 

The colour drains from her sister in laws face, and then she hears the squeal of tires. "What the hell--?" together her and Hope stumble towards the front door just in time to see Crane slamming the car door shut on the passenger side before the car speeds out of the driveway. "Well we know he didn't kill him at least," Faye mutters, barely relieved. 

"Yet. For all we know he's driving Crane out someplace where he can kill him quietly."

"Hope!" she scolds sharply and then lowers her voice. "Donovan is not going to---why are your worried about him after what he did to you?"

"Did to me?"

"Hope, he….he…..he tried to drown you. That must be why you can't remember anything. He probably hit you before throwing you in the lake." 

Hope's eyes go wide. She had woken up in the lake, hadn't she? with no memories? How long had she been under? Had he really hurt her before? 

And yet her mind snags on Crane's accusation before Donovan hauled him out. "The photos."

"What about them?" Faye asks, voice pitching up suspiciously. 

"Faye," she says slowly. "I need you to explain to me what happened with the deal is with those pictures."  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The Life of Fortune.

Though the King Ro had let the spitfire Seer go with her life, he was still a superstitious man, and had taken her word about the rot coming from within to heart. If he was ill inside, he must build fresh. 

It would not be the first time he had taken from his subjects. A new heart, he thinks. New lungs. New organs. And a new soul, souls. He must fortify within, restoring his health, his power, and then he would be prepared for battle. But he needed to harvest first. He called on the Snake and the Snake consulted his books of witchcraft. Locating spells, seeking the purest, fullest heart. The sharpest mind. The brightest eyes. 

They poisoned his first wife--who loved her children deeply, for her heart. 

And his second son, took a fall, unwitnessed, for his brilliance. 

What a horrific thing, that all of the parts King Ro would need for his new body could be found among his wives and children.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A cheer goes up in her quarter of her village where she spars with a young man, nimbly leaping and jumping, quick knives flashing and wrestling and tumbling as she flips him and pins him to the floor. "You are growing slow, Aniel." she smiles. He is her brother, darker than she. He grins up at her as she lets him up. 

It had been a blessing that she and her siblings had been spared during that raid. It had been perhaps the first and only act of defiance ever enacted under King Ro's rule. Instead of killing them, the soldier had kept them alive and called them common children, had taken them into his household as servants. He had not been kind, no. But no worse than if they had found themselves in slave pits at the palace. Or a worse soldier. 

She has been lucky, all the while. She could catch a knife with her teeth and swipe from a market stall. See the future. The household had known it, but rumour had spread and running errands one day the Snake had been prowling through the village and had heard the commotion of people calling for their lives to be told. 

She had mistakenly told the Snake that he would be devoured by a great bird. 

He had plucked out her eye for it. 

And a week later a star grew back in its place. Persistent and seeing all the same.

The solider who taken them in had called her cursed and turned her out on the streets. Aniel and Mirta going with her. They made their own life, free as could be managed. People paid her for the future, came to her for healing---surely a woman who grows back an eye can heal a sore--which she could---and when not doing that, she fought, her brother and sister and a few others, quietly, under cover of night or too early in the morning, they trained. The King ailed they knew, and their time would come.

A racket kicks up. "Ro's dogs!" someone calls. What they call the guards down in her quarter. The group disperses quickly, back into their homes, doors closed and cloths draped. Tables righted. She is their leader. She does not cloak herself here. She is mildly intrigued by who comes forward. 

"Guard."

"Seer" he addresses. It is the same blue eyed guard, although to call him that now is a mistake. He wears no armour. His clothes are tatters. They must know him only by the brand on his neck, he does that to his enforcers--to remind them they are property to him, a slightly more favoured slave. She looks to his hands. 

"You are short an appendage from when I saw you last." she says, nodding to where he is clearly missing a finger. His eyes narrow at her and he flexes the ones that remain. She takes in the height of him properly now, the curling dark brown hair. He is too fair, she thinks. Imagining that a good sunning would be good for his complexion. Well, if he's out here with them without his armour, he will be seeing much of the sun. "What brings you"

He casts his gaze around, corners of his mouth turned down. "You are a liar and cheat. They talk of you on the road here. How you tell fortunes and preserve their lives. And yet you could not tell it," he spits. 

She stares him down, the one brown eye and the one dark one. She only lets the star shine when she works, but she lets it now. Winking the one eye shut slow and open again. He barely catches himself before he flinches away. "You could not tell that he would murder his kin for life. He is a monster--"

"Has it taken you so long to see it?" she shoots back. "Have you not served him? Look how he rewards you," she motions to the bandaged bloody spot. "You have fallen."

"Why did you not say---"

"I tell of things unknown. What the universe itself has not told mere mortals. His nature is no secret to man or animal. There is nothing to foresee in evil incarnate himself. The depths of his wickedness is known."

"Wretched creature,"

"You come into my quarters and yet you disparage me. Your gizzard must cry to be pierced by my knife."

He looks down his nose at her. "I should be afraid if your swordsmanship is as finely tuned as your sharp tongue,"

Fortune grins at him. "Sharper, I promise you."

At last he looks down, sheepish. "I tried to rescue one of the wives. To reason that there must be another way….he claimed I had too many points to make, and so took my finger." 

"They took my eye because they feared what I see." she answers, sweeping her gaze over him again. "My sympathy does not run deep." she turns her back on him, sauntering down an alley. "Come with me. You ran?"

"Fought tooth and nail. They planned to take one from me every day."

She nods. "You are ours now." 

"Heron," he introduces himself. 

Her starry eye glitters at him. A great bird, she thinks, considering his towering height. "You know what they call me. This way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well what the hell are they looking for at Mother Cece's house? 
> 
> Is Hope about to believe Crane tried to hurt her?
> 
> And Fortune and Heron are quite a pair, aren't they?


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Siblings being siblings.
> 
> Heron and Fortune our past life Abbie and Crane
> 
> And Hope.
> 
> comments please! :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I promise I'll make things make sense on the Donovan and Crane front. As for the past lives....I'm just really enjoying writing them okay?
> 
> I

September 2016

"Ugh," Phee groans, turning over in the bed and nudging Glory. "Roll over," 

Glory groans back. "You roll over"

"It's my bed," Phee hisses, tugging sharply on the blankets. 

"And I'm a guest"

"Who invited you?" she queries, clearly annoyed. It doesn't happen often but they sneak into one another's rooms sometimes at night still and sleep together. But Glory isn't usually such a fidgety bedmate. "Ugh. Why did you bring that thing over here?"

"Cuz I didn't want it going off in my room and mom finding it"

"You wouldn't have that problem if you didn't steal it from Mr.Crane's room."

"I wanted to know who he's calling"

"Can't you ever mind your own business?"

"You didn't use to say that before,"

Phee huffs and flops over on her back, staring up at the ceiling. "Before, what, Glory."

"Oh you know before what. Before you became the miracle child."

"Oh not this again." she grunts, flopping back over, back turned to her twin. The bed shifts and the phone which had been sandwiched between them hums again. "Turn it off!" 

"I wanna know who's calling." 

"Well answer it then dummy."

"What if it's the police."

"Why would it be the police."

"Well they were around here after Winnie's husband died."

"They were around everyone after that. No one's looking at us. Who are they gonna suspect, Daddy?"

"You forget how weird he'd been acting"

Silence while Phee takes a deep breath. "No. No I haven't forgotten that." 

"Exactly. I don't trust him."

"Who"

"Mr. Crane." 

The phone goes off again. 

"Doesn't the screen say who's calling?"

"Miss Jenny."

A sigh as Phee gathers her strength. "Who's Miss Jenny."

"Dunno but she must need him real bad. She hasn't stopped calling back."

Frustration lances through her at last and Phee snaps on the bedside light, digs through the blankets to find her sister and wrestles the phone from her hands. "Hey!"

"Get out of my bed! And I'm keeping the phone before you do something stupid." Glory glares at her before bouncing out of the bed too hard, grasping the door handle and begins padding across the hall when she hears voices down stairs. "Shut the doooor," Phee whines.

"ssh!" Glory hisses back. 

"What is WRONG with you"

"be quiet 'Amazing Grace', yeesh." she snaps, listening to the clash and clamour. 

"Get away from her! Hope? What did you do to her?"

Phee's ears perk up. "Is that mom?" 

"SSSSH!"

"I know what you did to Hope. I know what I saw, I can show you the proof of it."

"And what did you SEE" another voice yells back. Phee swings her feet out of the bed and tip toes to the door with her sister, listening. 

"Is that Mr. Crane?" she whispers and Glory jumps. 

"Phee!"

"Sorry!"

"I"M NOT THE ONE TAMPERING WITH FAMILY PHOTOS AROUND HERE TO MAKE HER THINK SHE BELONGS"

Both sisters exchange a glance on that one. "Are they talking about Auntie Hope?" Phee asks.

"I TOLD you I don't trust him. He's nosey." 

"I'M NOT THE ONE WHO TRIED TO DROWN---"Their fathers voice roars. They grip each other, questions in their eyes before they slide tentatively forward. But not quiet enough. 

"Go back to sleep!" Their mother calls.. "Everything is fine girls, go back to bed!" 

Phee latches onto her sister, tugging her back. "Come on. You heard mom."

"Everything is not fine." Glory protests. 

"you're so nosey" 

"Ever since you can see you think you know everything."

"Ever since I can see you seem to wish I couldn't." she shoots back. 

Glory chews her lip. "it's not that." she says at last.

Phee leads them both back to her room, turns off the light, reaches for the phone and fumbles in the dark for the buttons that will turn it off, jamming it under her pillow. She shuts her eyes tight and feels Glory get in beside her. "It's not that." her sister murmurs again. 

Blanket pulled up to her chin and back facing her Phee answers. "Could have fooled me."   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Downstairs Hope levels her gaze with Faye, hoping her resolve is strong enough to demand answers. She pushes away the remaining needling pain, silences all of the other clamouring thoughts that want her attention. Ones that keep asking why being around Crane for such a short period of time stirs her up inside. Ones that ask if the reason she can't seem to remember anything, and suffers severe pain when she tries is tied to him. 

Another one that keeps whispering that the truth will destroy her. 

"Those pictures are so OLD Hope," Faye replies easily. "Sun exposure, time passing, simple things like that will make pictures go funny, you know what, come to think of it, I've been noticing them looking faded the other day, I should move them." and before Hope can mount a protest Faye has already bustled out to the hall and begins hanging each one of them down in such rapid haste the frames clatter as she stacks them on top of one another and then pressing her chin on the top most one takes off down the hall, calling a reprimand over her shoulder when she hears Hope following too close behind her. "There's too much going on today, and…..I don't know if I trust that man who came here earlier. Especially after---"

"What makes you so sure he'd harm me?" Hope shoots back, a strange defensiveness creeping into her tone. Familiar. Like she has had to make explanations, excuses, defences for Crane before, like she's protective of him, has been for some time.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The Life of Fortune

"Ro's Dogs!" they shout and Fortune waves her hands to silence them as she enters the heart of camp. 

"Ro's stray," she corrects them and the racket subsides. Heron shifts uncomfortably beneath their heavy scrutinizing gaze. These people are the kind he has helped beat back and down for years. Now among them he hopes to seek refuge. If they will have him, if they will let him right his blind and barbaric wrongs in aiding the king, he will help them destroy that demon that sits atop the throne.

"He's a spy" someone hisses. 

"He'll run in the night and tell them where we are."

"We should cut out his tongue so he cannot speak" this from Mirta, sashaying out of the shadows with a knife balanced on the point on her finger. Her wavy dark hair trails down her back. "We should cut out his feet from beneath him so he cannot run." she smiles at him cruelly. 

"Tempting," Fortune concedes. "Very tempting. But I've not yet met a man so devoted or possessed by Ro to mutilate himself." without warning she grabs his hand and waves it in the air above their heads, as if announcing a new champion in the races. The crowd reels back. "He tried to spare one of the wives from being sacrificed to the King. The King grows mad in his sickness and turns to darker arts than we have ever known before," she lowers his hand but keeps it in hers, one digit overlapping where one of his should be, and strides forward taking centre stage. "He means to make a new body, a new vessel for him to inhabit. To be immortal and have eternal power and dominance. He has been culling from his own for their parts." she tells them and there is one or two gasps of horror. Someone else spits. "We cannot allow him to achieve it. Before long he will turn to us to finish putting him together. He will want our nimble fingers and cunning minds. We will need fighters. New blood in our ranks." she gives Heron a shove forward and he stumbles as he goes. "This man defied his master. Turned his back on the luxury and terror he has enjoyed for so many years"

Heron opens his mouth to argue. "I did not enjoy---"

She glares at him and then continues. "He is one of us now. And no one will harm him. He knows the palace. The guards routine. He is our way in."

"Who will watch him?"

"I will" Fortune answers and she smirks at the sound of him sighing in relief beside her. "He came to find me so I will watch him, lest his mind take a turn of loyalty back to the king," and she arches a brow at him, inquiring. He arches one back. 

"Nothing could make me kneel before him again. I would sooner lose another finger."

"That can be arranged." Mirta taunts. 

Fortune shakes her head. "Well are you going to feed us?"

Mirta flicks her gaze over Heron from head to toe. "Don't they feed you at the palace?" Heron clenches his lips together and Mirta sneers. "I can oblige you on that finger, you just have to look at me wrong" 

"They won't warm to you over night." Fortune says after when everyone resumes their previous activities she leads him to what must be her room. Rough hewn walls, wooden beam door, heavy cloths covering gaping wholes that serve as windows. 

"You warmed to me," he says and Fortune turns her eyes on him. One brown, one star. 

"I thawed. There's a very subtle difference, but one all the same." As she speaks she loops rope around his wrist and hers, around and around, over and under until he can no longer tell which way the rope turns before she turns it into an efficient knot. She blinks and the starry eye goes black. "You won't be going anywhere without me. And don't ask me to untie us. The star knows, and I won't be shedding it's light on this binding again anytime soon." She hauls him over to the pallet on the ground, throws herself down on it and Heron is forced to lie on the floor below. She frowns. "Come on." and she shuffles over, making room. He's skeptic at first but he quickly manoeuvres himself onto the narrow thing beside her. "Hands to yourself" she warns before rolling away from him and in the process flinging his bound hand over her. He makes a disgruntled noise as he positions himself around her, trying to be mindful of the way her behind presses dangerously close to him. 

And he thinks he hears her snicker before he falls asleep.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
September 2016

Faye fumbles for words, mouth opening and closing. "We'll wake the girls," she says at last, eyes pleading with her.

"What what is it you and Donny are hell bent on me not knowing? I know something's not been right with him since he came home, you guys hide it from the girls but not me. I'm a grown woman Faye. I….I may not remember much these days but I know when I'm being played for a fool and today for the first time I didn't feel like that." water springs to her eyes and she's dismayed by it. It's been literally years since she's cried. "Whoever he is, however crazy he is, hell we all know we think I'm a little crazy too. Maybe our crazy works together. Maybe we help each other make sense. You didn't see his eyes when he spoke to me Faye. It was like the world made sense." She runs a hand through her hair in exasperation, slamming a hand against a wall. "It felt like my world made sense. Even though none of this fits….I'm sure he didn't hurt me." 

Faye swallows hard, hesitates, unsure whether or not to touch her. "No one thinks you're crazy."

"Then why don't you ever think it's a good idea for me to go into town unsupervised? I never get the keys to the car. You only take me in to see the doctor. And when I do go, I hear them whispering about me."

"It's the women hissing about how their boyfriends and husbands are all enamoured with you." 

"Damnit Faye. You know what I mean. They don't envy me they question me. 'Never even knew Dove had a sister' 'guess that's a secret well kept' Acting like they don't know me when I grew up here---didn't I?" a faraway vulnerable look settles in her eyes. "Faye, I grew up here didn't I?"

Her sister in law wrings her hands anxiously. "It's late." she says lamely. 

"That day in the hospital you said Donovan never told you he had a sister."

She doesn't answer, twists her mouth and tosses her braids over her shoulder. 

"It's not because I'd been away so long, is it. When he woke up, he was scared of me, I saw it."

"You need some tea, and I'm going to call Donovan and make sure he hasn't done any harm to Mr. Crane."

Hope goes silent as Faye brushes past her into the kitchen, putting the kettle on, making a deliberate, if not delicate racket, with hopes, perhaps, that she'll distract Hope from her curious line of thought. 

"I'm not the one tampering with family photos around here to make her think she belongs." The words continue to echo in Hope's mind, Crane's enraged voice. Enraged for her, on her behalf. He's been over interested in her since he pulled up to the driveway earlier today. Since he called her by her given name and had looked for all the world like he was about to embrace her, like he recognized her. 

Still mulling these thoughts over she pads into the kitchen just as Faye turns around and smiles at her softly, trying so hard to get back to normal. She's protecting her from something, or thinks she is. Hope knows it. She wants to be furious for the secrets and half truths and blank spaces but she also knows there are parts of that which come from a misguided place of care.

And she knows what it is to deny unbelievable, or unfavourable realities to get by. To move on. She gives her head a shake. No, she doesn't, she corrects herself. Praying to be spared another onslaught of pain. Faye sets a cup down in front of her and as Hope reaches for it she has a very distinct image of slender white fingers curling around the handle of a cup. Muttering about whatever it is he mutters about, raising it to his lips--the face itself is a shadow, but she doesn't mistake the low timbre of the voice. Ah hell, is she daydreaming of Crane now? She sighs, leaning her head in her hand. You're not well, Hope. She thinks to herself. You're not well at all. She takes a sip and loses herself staring into the cup, oblivious as Faye calls Donovan to find out what's going on. When she gets off she seems less worried and more perplexed. 

"So did her murder him or not" she asks. 

Faye shoots her a look before huffing an exhausted laugh. "Not. They're….are you finished your tea?" she swiftly changes the subject because it seems a much more difficult thing now for her to try and explain to Hope that Donovan has gone from wanting to kill Crane to taking a late night road trip to visit Winnie, that he's claiming he's made a mistake. 

Hope rolls her eyes. "You're getting very predictable when you do that,"

"Hmm? do what,"

"Change the subject so I won't ask questions. But I'm not gonna stop asking. I want answers. I'll always want answers. And I won't stop till I get them." 

"Hope."

"What," she snaps as she pushes back from the table. 

"Hope. No matter what you hear. What you think. What you feel. You do belong with us. And you ARE part of this family. You're my friend and aunt to my children and Donovan's sister, and we care about you. And I will protect you." she adds sternly, eyes narrowing. "I will protect you, from anything and anyone."

"Even you? What if you're what's standing in my way? What if you're the ones harming me? Will you protect me from you?" they hold each other in a locked stare for a moment before Hope gives a sad nod and trudges off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'm thinking I'll showcase another one of Abbie's lives at some point. But I'm gonna need name suggestions for other past life Crane
> 
> If you've got a suggestion please leave it in your comments :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donovan and Crane arrive at Winnie's. 
> 
> More Heron and Fortune (Can you ship within a ship? because I do)
> 
> Thanks for reading! comments! xo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taking my sweet time with these past lives because I REALLY like them.

Winnie braces herself and pushes open the door. Inhales and staggers with the strength of the scent that overtakes her in here. It's her fault, a week dead and she hasn't opened the room to let it air out. It still smells so strongly of Mother Cece tears spring to her eyes. Kind woman went quiet in the night, hadn't even bothered to wake long enough to tell Winnie she was going, crossing over at last. She blinks the water back and steps in before she hears thunderous knocking at the front door and she jolts. Dazed, she checks her watch. Who in the hell? she wonders, storming back out, slamming the door shut firmly behind her and scrambling down the steps, past the kitchen to the hallway closet and finds a baseball bat. Something Cecelia's middle son, Right Wade, had used and she'd never had the heart to throw away. Not when he'd grown up, not when he'd died. She grabs that and ambles cautiously toward the door. Winnie takes a deep breath, grasps the handle, prepared to open and swing when a voice rings out. 

"Open up Win."

"Dove?"

"Miss Winnie, yes, it's us."

She shakes her head. "Mr. Crane?" Lowering the bat somewhat she cracks open the door. The pair of them are soaked through. "You have any idea of the time Dove?"

"Not a social call Win."

"You come to haul me out of Cece's house? she left it to me, you saw the will."

"I just need….have you cleared out her room yet?" Donovan asks. 

"And what's this one doing with you? Glad to see you're getting along so fine to come out and harass me in the middle of the night together." 

"Miss Winnie please." Crane implores. She opens the door slightly more. 

"There's something here Mother Cece left for me."

"Well tell me what it is I'll go---"

Donovan braces the door frame in his hand. "Not….no…I…."

"I know you don't think I'm about to let you two in here alone with me at this hour."

"I know where it'll be," Donovan stresses then swallows. "I'm just not entirely sure of what it is."

Winnie and Crane both gaze at him in disbelief. 

"I don't think so Dove." she shakes her head and begins to shut the door.

"Have you cleared out her room yet?"

"Was just about to."

He almost laughs. "At this hour?"

"……can't sleep sometimes." She doesn't say that in the still of the night the house hums something awful. She doesn't know how she never noticed it before but since Cecilia died it thrums all night long. 

"Her room." Donovan manages. "I'm sure I'll find--we'll find what we need there."

Winnie casts her eyes on their muddy grassy shoes. "Wipe your feet."  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The Life of Fortune

Forgetting her new bedfellow she rolls over too fast when dawn breaks, abruptly throwing herself into his chest. He grunts with the impact, winded, and glares down at the dark crown of curls before she bounds up too quickly, taking him with her and draws her knife aiming at him. He makes a panicked noise before she blinks and sleep leaves her. "Oh. Bird. It's just you."

"Heron." he groans, rubbing his eyes with his free hand, just barely catching his breath from the early morning fright. "Good morning." he nods to her still drawn blade. Her gaze follows, takes in his flushed face and scoffs, quickly stowing it away. 

"You wouldn't be the first." she says. "I cut Aniel one morning when he came to wake me. Shallow thing. He's never dared shake me again though." Heron can scarcely believe her sense of humour. About injuring a sibling much less. She notes his silence. "A scratch nothing more." She assures him, now tugging him around the room with her as she rummages for her jug and basin, dips a rag that had been drying on a ledge and begins sloshing her face with it before she dunks it again and slings it in his, roughly dragging it across his jaw and brow, what he staunchly believes is a malicious tug on his nose before she tosses it back in, dunking it a few more times and she sidesteps behind a makeshift curtain erected in the room but stops shy of pulling him behind with her. "It didn't even scar." she calls and Heron fixes his eyes in the complete opposite direction when he sees a top and bottom get thrust out on the other side of the curtain onto a stool and the sound of more water. His face colours. "Guard." she says at last after another indeterminate amount of time. She pokes her head out and sneers at him. "Is Ro's Stray bashful?"

"I have decency." he says. 

"Hmm" she replies thoughtfully. "That tunic there, in the corner please." she directs him. He fumbles with his left hand and eyes shut tight waves it blindly until he feels her snatch it from him. "I will blind fold you from now on. You can open your eyes." 

He keeps them shut a while longer. 

"Heron." she says evenly. He opens his eyes and turns to her. She nods her head behind the curtain. "Wash." she instructs. He begins to make protests. "You're going to stink out here if you don't. I'm known for being an all Seeing hag or disabled wretch but I won't be told I smell. Where you go I go. What I do you do. Go on." and with all of the surprising might in her small forearm reels him in, spins him behind the drape. He blinks dumbly on the other side. Another basin of water here, a rag. He grits his teeth as he struggles with the one arm to get undressed. "Do you need help?" 

"No."

"I'm not trying to peak, Guard."

"Heron."

More fumbling and she huffs. "How did you manage?" he asks at last and Fortune smirks.

"My things lace. I just untied them. If yours don't, here." her dark little hand appears with her knife. "Cut them off then. I have something you can put on." 

"Do you keep spare clothes for all of your male hostages?" he quips, ignoring the blade and instead opts to just pour the water over his head and hope for the best. He yelps with the coldness of it. He emerges looking like a wet dog. 

She looks him over, assessing. "To think I thought a wash might do you good. Come." 

Outside the sun beats down hot and the air is already dry. He feels the water evaporating off his skin. They'd drunk water and torn pieces from a loaf hurriedly before she'd dragged him out here, a belt of weaponry slung over her shoulder. She draws a longer blade than the one she usually keeps on her and then hands him one. His hand falters. She eyes him warily as she tries to force it in his hand but his fingers go slack and it whizzes to the ground. She narrowly skips out of the way. "Cutting my toes off will do you no favours here." she growls and tries again, watching as the sweat beads up on is forehead and how is muscles struggle to defy her. Frustrated, she let's the star out. 

She Sees him being held by the other guards. Ones whom the day before were as close to comrades as one could manage. His face is bruised and his muscles strain with the effort to escape their grasp as they hold his right hand down on the table and one of them raises the cleaver and---she shuts out the image but she hears his scream nonetheless. She let's blackness surface and she meets his eyes. 

"You will over come it." she says simply, determinedly folding his fingers around the handle. "You will be twice as handy when we're done. And when we storm the palace, they will know that the spirit is stronger than the body. Your hands still more deadly than theirs. No matter how scarred." He makes a choked sound and raises his hand, absorbing the strangeness of it. He is not left handed, has never been. Certainly he has never hesitated to wield a weapon, but the memory of how his misguided bravery had been rewarded makes him falter. It is strange to hold, he feels clumsy. Uncoordinated. The fact that his dominant hand is bound still with hers doesn't help at all until she wraps her fingers around his wrist and begins to guide his movements. "Every morning." she intones, as she adjust his grip and shifts his stance--in dangerously close proximity due to their tied hands. "Until it's like you were born with it." She picks up her weapon and eyes trained on her he follows her movements, like a mirror. "Everything you know but in reverse. That's all Heron. Come at me." it's awkward and too close he wants to protest, she must see that, but it makes him precise as he drives at her she grasps his hand and stops him just short of her chest. "You would press here." she instructs. 

Bold, he thinks. Given he still has control of the weapon he could kill her now if he had a mind too. But then he realizes how sure and steady her grip on him is. He swallows. It's actually more likely she could snap his wrist. "and twist." she rotates his hand and then pulls away. Their early morning training session leaves them panting and sweaty and the rest of camp starts emerging, going through their own routines. 

"Aniel, Mirta." she summons her siblings and they saunter over, eyeing him warily. "He'll need clothes, what lace on the side like yours Aniel. I meant what I said, until we're sure, I won't be apart from him not even to wash."

"You could bathe with him." Mirta teases wickedly and Fortune shakes her head. 

"Bathe with a stray dog?" she scoffs and then spits. Her brother and sister laugh and then go on their way. 

"How long---"

"Before they trust you?" she shrugs, begins clearing away the short sword and cleaver, deftly working with the one hand. She stops a moment, grabs the jug of water, drinks and and then hands it to him, pushes back the hair off his forehead before he can oppose her. "The time it takes for trust is not a luxury we have. You'll just have to pray they don't cut you loose and kill you in the middle of the night." she frowns at him as the hair flops back his face. "Here." she grabs the lacing at her neck and pulls it through the holes, gestures for him to sit down and bringing both her hands up and consequently one of his she leans in, reaching to gather up his hair. As she fiddles with tying it up her collar widens and reveals her dark skin, she is close enough he could press his lips to her throat, taste the salty drops beading up there. He cannot quite put his finger on her scent, distracted as he is by the near view he has down her tunic for that short second. "There." tying it off high on his head she settles back and watches him. "That should help keep you cool."

"Thank you."

The briefest smile flits across her face, a smile all the same. A brilliant flash of white and her brown eye glittering at him. Genuine. 

The first time Fortune smiled upon him.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
September 2016

Jenny curses. Ezra glances over at her. "Still nothing?"

"I don't like it dad, I don't like it, I think we should head out there." 

"Where? He cut off before you could get an address."

"We'll just drive out, ask around when we reach. It's not like Crane not to keep in touch."

"Alright. Let's start packing."  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Lord it's like she's still here." Donovan gasps as they open the door. 

"Told you I haven't started." Winnie answers tersely. 

Crane follows them in, taking in the scenery. "Interesting tastes for an old woman," he notes before his eyes latch on a rock resting on the dresser. It twinkles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever heard of a house that hums? no, me neither. hmm.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mother Cece had some odd, requests, when she passed. 
> 
> Hope's thoughts.

On her nightstand there's a picture of her and the family. Her family. Hers. Donovan, Faye, Phoenix Grace, Glory, and her. They took it in May. It was Mother's day. They were all so excited to have Donovan back home, and he was so…..bewildered by having his sister back Faye decided to commemorate the two occasions with a family photo. She'd kept one and given the other one to Hope. "An official welcome home" she'd said. This photo, she can account for the validity of. This one has memory and history she can recall. Unlike the photos downstairs, which she'd always passed with a sort of nonchalance. This one she knows a date, an event. The backdrop is the porch out front where Hope had just finished watering the plants when they'd all but ambushed her there outside. They're all smiling so wide. They look so happy. She looks happy, there's a surprised delight twinkling in her eyes with one arm around the back of Faye standing in the middle with the girls in front. Donovan had set up the camera timer on the stand and fit him self in last minute. She's struck by a pang of guilt. What she said to Faye hadn't been fair. How could she ever question her sense of belonging here? 

And yet how can she accept it? 

She knows this life is hers, these people. But something still doesn't add up. Tearing her gaze away from the picture she goes to her closet, rummages around to the back of it and withdraws a garment bag. It's the dress she was wearing when she--Hope tries not to think about it. About the empty patch of memory that swallows up everything before she blinked her eyes open on the lake surface to the shrill screaming of her nieces and Donovan, out cold on the bank. That's where she starts, it seems. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
April 2016

If she pushes herself, she can actually recall the feeling of her body breaking the surface, the coldness of her limbs, sounds of the storm. The moment when her first sight is that of the swaying tree limbs and the stormy sky above. Air filling her lungs so rapidly her breath comes in a violent rush. A shocked gasp. But right before then, a foggy watery swirling of thoughts. As if someone was reciting facts for her to remember: Your name is Abigail Hope Dove. You are the younger sister of Donovan, aunt to his daughters---

"Glory?" she calls, movements clumsy and waterlogged, struggling in the soaked dress. The terrified cry breaks off. 

Impossible recognition had settled on Glory's mind. "Auntie Hope?" strange words for her to say because she had never had an aunt. Both of her parents are only children. Hope finally hauls herself up, rifles through Donovan's pockets and had at last found his cell phone and dialled 911. And then she had cradled still screaming Phoenix Grace in her arms--the blind one--her mind had whispered. They'd waited, her making soothing noises in the relentless rain until the ambulance had come.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
September 2016

Hope stares at the garment, the tiers of lace and fabric. Stupidly courting the idea of a memory. A glimpse of the past. She glances at her dresser where rests an array of bottles. She's tried almost five different medications so far. One that made her so drowsy she'd practically slept through half of July. Nothing helps. 

No.

What's wrong with Hope, is an internal, core matter. Deeper than neurological. Deeper than chemical balances. It's the crater, the hole, the yawning chasm inside her. 

Frustrated tears spring to her eyes and she throws the dress down on the floor, begins pacing frantically across the room. No one's going to fix this for you Hope you're gonna have to figure this out for yourself. And you can't do it here. She thinks. Not with Donovan and Faye holding your hand and coddling you and giving you careful looks across the table at breakfast. Not with Donovan bundling off Crane in the middle of the night and the wild accusations and the half formed answers they give her when she demands them. 

Passing her gaze over her possessions in the room, biting her lips together, Hope weighs her options.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Jenny has just about finished packing a bag when a call comes through. "Mills?" her gut clenches. It's Sophie. After so long she still hasn't managed to tell Sophie that it pains her to be addressed that way.

"Mills" was for Joe when he used to tease her.

"Mills" was for Abbie when this same agent would refer to her colleague. 

Mills…..it isn't her. But she lets Sophie have this because it's the other woman's way of coping too. They'd gotten surprisingly close before Abbie died. Jenny often thinks perhaps that Sophie grieves not just for a friend and peer lost but for the abruptness of it. For all the possibilities their friendship could have had. Being two of the strongest women in the FBI. A sister in arms. So even though the name makes Jenny want to peel her skin every time she hears it, she allows Sophie Foster this. 

"You got me," she answers wearily. 

"Sorry if I've caught you at a bad time." Sophie apologizes. She always apologizes. She can't help the fact that devils and demons are not her area of expertise. "I've got a problem. It's up your alley."

Jenny sighs heavily. She longs for the day that her knowledge of monsters wouldn't perhaps qualify her to teach a course at Hogwarts or advanced demonology to the Bureau. And the way things are going, they could probably benefit from an introduction to the topic, given how much messier Sleepy Hollow gets these days. 

Danny respectfully diverts attention from their supernatural escapades. Abbie had been his one reason to venture into that bizarre creature riddled world. And her death had been his sure fire reason to run out of it. He all but wiped his hands of them after the funeral. Sophie says he's not the same, and never will be. 

No, Jenny agrees, it never will be. Abbie's passing is still like a void in the world. A dark space. A missing piece. There's no closure to be had. No last memories to hold on to more than her vanishing into that mist and she was just gone. They didn't even understand the permanence of it when it had happened. Still not even in the graveyard with Pandora breathing her last taunts. 

There hadn't even been a body to bury. 

Casket and grave all for show. 

"Sophie," her voice falters. "I….now isn't a good time, really. I'm…..Crane's…."

It doesn't surprise her one bit that Jenny is about to say Crane's gone off on his own. He'd made a wandering frightful mess of himself early on. A mute grieving spectre, that wouldn't cry, wouldn't rage. Living against his own will, but still damning well doing it. Worried as they all were about Jenny and Crane both, sometimes Sophie wondered if an accident befalling Crane wouldn't be a kindness. At least Jenny would be freed of all ties to this world saving life. Her father could vanish back where he had come. And she could look out for Jenny, like a sister. Like the one she never had and half fill the shoes of the sister Jenny lost. "Just help me with this demon and i'll get out of your hair okay?"

"What, what is it"

"Them. dog like things look like they came out of Avatar."

Jenny curses. "Dad. hold off on packing we gotta help Foster." she turns back to the phone. "We're coming, but as soon as it's sorted I gotta head out." 

She prays during this further delay that wherever Crane is, he's not in trouble.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"Tell me what you think you're looking for and I can help you," Winnie insists, rolling her eyes as Donovan carefully prowls around the room. "What is it you need at this hour anyway?"

"Winnie I---" Donovan begins and exchanges a glance across the room with Crane. He clears his throat. 

"Master Dove," Winnie raises her brows. "I….I have found that sometimes it is best to share with one. To realize the unbelievable circumstances. Ease the burden, if you will."

"Share?" Winnie glances between the two men. "What, you switching teams Dove?" 

Donovan points an accusing finger at her "See that right there is why Hope don't take you on, you play too much" 

"Well if you two would tell me what's going on I wouldn't have to jump to strange conclusions"

The two men glance at one another again, tension in their stances. At last Donovan swallows. "You remember how Mother Cece used to story tell?"

"I think everyone has been at Mother Cece's knee at some point, listening to her tell stories or singing or---" humming, she breaks off. Coldness washing over her. Humming like this damn house. It gives a sudden insistent thrum just as she thinks it. 

"You remember her talking about the two heroes. Ones who lived forever and fought side by side?"

"Mhmm," she agrees, cocking her head, listening. Crane has noticed by now too, he's half listening to Donovan but his eyes rove over the room, searching. 

"Do you hear something, Master Dove?"

"Like wha--is that humming?"

"Hmm?"

"Winnie what's that sound?"

"I don't know, Dove." she huffs. "House has been doing that since Cecilia passed."

"You sure it's not the vents or something? the heating?"

"No I'm---" all three pause, listening. "Is that---" 

"No." Donovan denies staunchly, tears springing to his eyes and biting his knuckles. "Hell, NO" 

"What are we so adamantly protesting?"

"Lullaby Mother Cece use to sing," Winnie answers cautiously. "Said it was a song as old as time itself, generation to generation,"

"How long has this been going on?"

"I just told you, I don't know what it is. It's why I can't sleep anymore. And I don't investigate it because until tonight it's never SOUNDED like anything."

"It must be you then, Donovan." Crane says. "Whatever it is, it's reacting to you." 

"The thing I need to find," Donovan murmurs to himself, searching again in earnest. Winnie has retreated into herself, unnerved now by the emerging familiarity of the tune. Crane meanwhile has shuffled closer to the dresser and begins to reach for the odd stone before Winnie snatches it up from him. He raises an inquiring brow. 

"Pendant mother Cece used to wear." she explains, hefting it in her palm. "It's heavy I know but she swore by it. Said it comforted her." 

Crane is about to attempt detailing to Winnie that he believes that is precisely why they should be able to take it when Donovan saves him the trouble. "I'll pass it on to Faye. Grandma liked her, she'd want her to have it." 

Winnie folds her arms. "Actually, she left that for Faye, over there." her voice quavers as she gestures toward the two bound books on the nightstand. One of them is vibrating. Donovan tracks her gaze. 

"These?"

"If you'd bothered to come by after the funeral and read the fine print, it was in her will. To Faye I leave my hymn book….To….to Donovan, apple of my eye, I hope he finds something among my possessions to see the world clearly. To help him make sense of loss." she quotes directly, nods to the book that she now swears is the culprit of the noise. 

"Everyone else she leaves clear instructions but to me she leaves a riddle."

"Well take it all then. Sift through it at home. I'll help you load it. But you can leave her clothes and things, I'll donate those or alter them. If you want, cut them down for the girls maybe." 

He swallows around the lump that has suddenly taken form in his throat. "Thanks Winnie."

"It's what we do in times like these. Here." and she hunts for a jewelry box and places the heavy, dark, sparkling pendant in the box and gives it to him. "Take care of it. She cherished this….said it made her world alright….you might keep it for yourself." she says meaningfully. Donovan accepts the stone. In his other hand, his fingers tingle around the hymn book, he raises it to his ear, just to be sure, cracks it open and the hum becomes insistently louder. All three pairs of eyes widen. 

Crane looks over at Donovan. "Master Dove, for what would reason would your grandmother wish for your wife to inherit a book that sings?"   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
She watches Hope go. Exhales and rubs her temples. 

Her heart hurts. A dull ache, from Hope's words. "Even you?" "Will you protect me from you?" 

It troubles her that Hope feels this way. That beneath all of the bonding and time they've spent together, all of her care, that this suspicion, this accusation lurked beneath the surface. She can't blame her. Faye understands how frustrated the other woman must be. How confused. The feeling that her life isn't quite her own. Or has somehow been unwontedly led astray. Her mind drifts to Donovan's mural and she shudders. They hadn't been allowed time to discuss the significance of it, and she worries now what fresh hell revelation he will come to her with when he returns. Preferably with Crane alive and breathing. She's too wound up to go to sleep. 

Wandering down the hall, fiddling with one of her braids as she goes, Faye finds herself in her music room. Casts her gaze around it, sighs and hears how even that lends itself to an echo in this resonant space. Oh my Dove, she muses fondly, thinking of her husband as she moves to her cello, plants herself in her chair and glides the bow across, letting the sound thrum long and low. She doesn't look at the music on her stand. For this piece it's unnecessary. She plays it too slowly deliberately. Contemplating the alternate turns the day has taken. The changes in her life, in those of her children, in those of her sister--because that's how she sees her no matter her doubts of belonging--Hope. 

Music has been a part of Faye's family for as long as she can remember. Her mother played the harp and her father the trumpet. Aunt sang and uncle the piano. Grandfather was the organist at his church before he died. Grandmother the flute. Her family albums are endless collections of concert halls, recitals, bands. Why, she'd met Donovan because of her own involvement in church music.

Very many Easter Seasons ago the Director of Music had hired her as part of a quartet for the Good Friday Mass. Cecilia Gordon had walked up to her very solemnly after the service, grasped her arm and had thanked her, for her wonderful playing. She'd thanked the others too, quiet reverent murmured thanks. 

On Easter Sunday she had approached her jubilantly after service. "Christ is Risen!" she had greeted. 

"He is Risen Indeed!" Faye had replied happily. "Happy Easter Sister."

"Mother Cece," she'd introduced herself. "You are?"

"Faye Fairchild"

"My grandson," she'd began, nodding over her shoulder to the strapping young man who was wrestling loosening his tie as he sauntered up the aisle, smiling on his way up. It had crossed Faye's mind at the time to decline the invitation to come over for lunch--she was sort of involved---but Mother Cece had insisted--and she would learn over the years how iron willed the woman was---and Donovan had been, Donovan. 

Mother Cece had always gone to her concerts, supportive of her music. In fact Faye is certain on more than one occasion she had overheard Cecilia suggesting to Donovan ways to alter her rehearsal space over the years. Almost too pleased if she heard Faye groan in frustration when Donovan had begun renovations. She'd argued with the woman over the years, as is inevitable with in laws, but they'd always come back together. In the later years she'd written off Cecilia's peculiarities as offsets of very old age. With the occasional spurt of wisdom. 

The woman had named her daughters. "Name them for good things, Faye." She'd smiled at her bedside with the two dark little bundles on her chest. "Name them for things that exult his Glorious Name. Name them for lives they will inherit" 

"What do you suggest, Cecilia?" she'd asked, amused. 

"Phoenix Grace, for that one there. Glory for the other."

It's funny that her mind goes there now, she thinks as she draws the bow back across singing softly along. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Upstairs Glory grunts her frustration with her sister. To be fair, it was her mother's playing that interrupted her. She'd know it anywhere. But it's Phoenix Grace beside her, voice lilting sleepily that annoys her. 

"Amaaaa--ahh--zing, Grace---ahh"   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"How Sweet, the sound," Faye sings, slowly, slowly, every word drawn out, spanning and stretching, the cello humming along.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"That saved---ahh--aaaa--wretch---"

"Phee!" Glory hisses, pulling the covers over her head. Most people sleep talk. Her sister sleep sings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More past life Ichabbie coming soon.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So many questions.

What wakes Faye is not birdsong or sun streaming through her windows. No, it is the drag clunk of shifting boxes and belongings being unceremoniously dragged through her house. She feel asleep in her music room, for the first time in eons it feels like. She groans as she stretches, noting the painful crick in her neck. "Donovan?"

He pokes his head in the room, Crane's appearing beside his and the image is so comical she laughs. They turn to each other, puzzled by her reaction and it makes her laugh even more. The absurdity of having watched the two of them dragging and hissing at the other the night before now to find them so, in tuned. Almost amicable. "Come in you two. What's all that noise?" 

The two men exchange looks again and Faye wonders exactly caused this new bond of theirs to form. 

"Went to visit Winnie, pick up some of Mother Cece's things." 

She arches a brow. "Some?"

"Most of it, Miss Dove. You see." Crane begins to explain but Donovan shakes his head sharply. He's not sure how to explain what's going on to his wife, without her being inspired to have him committed. 

"I'll, explain later. Anyway Winnie gave this to me, says Cece left it for you." 

"Me," she says dumbly, accepting the hymn book, confusion written on her face as she opens it. The men brace themselves for the haunting hum that had persisted the night before but here in the daylight, in the hands of its intended, the book remains, disappointingly, silent. Her brow furrows as she flips through it. "This is odd." she mutters and Crane glances at Donovan.

"How so, Miss Dove?"

"There's an incomplete song in here. Nine staves." she drags her finger along the first line, singing it lightly and the hairs on Donovan's arms prickle. "Nine part harmony. I just can't believe they managed to miss the fact that there was an unfinished hymn in here." Shrugging her shoulders she sets it down on the stand and stretches again. "I'm going to wake Hope. Take her in to the doctor" 

After she leaves Crane rushes to pick up the book again, flipping furiously through it until he finds the mystery song with unusual arrangement. "I do not understand." he flips through the rest and huffs. "Every other song in here is four part, but this, this is a chorus. It's highly unusual."

"No church congregation would just happen to be adept enough to sing that many parts," Donovan says, trying hard to think, to understand. 

Crane still has the book in hand, studying it closely when a noise disrupts both men. Hope stands in the doorway, looking amused at their pondering expressions. "If you're not careful your faces will stick that way," she warns playfully, and then turns to Crane. "I see my brother didn't harm you?"

"We made swift amends last night, Hope." 

"Glad to hear. I'm headed out with Faye now. Be back later"

Crane swallows hard, holding her gaze before she turns away. Even after she's left, he continues staring at the space she once occupied.

"Was there something between you two before?" Donovan ventures. Crane is too distraught to wonder if Donovan is about to be suspicious of him again. 

"There are no words for what lay between myself and the leftenant. I like to tell myself that's why I failed her so miserably before. So many times." 

Donovan sighs, approaches the odd man that is now his new…confidante, he supposes, and claps him on the shoulder. " You are your sisters Keeper" Crane glances at him. "That's what Cece told me, when Hope first appeared here. We need to figure out how to put Hope back together properly, to fulfill her duty as Witness, with you. But we need to understand what went wrong first." He screws up his mouth. "But we'll, we'll figure it out Crane. If for no other reason than I don't want to be caught up being your partner for however many tribulations. This isn't my destiny."

Crane rolls his eyes. "Well we can agree on something"  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Life of Fortune

It has been a two weeks and a little more--Heron will have wondered multiple times what keeps the binding secure so long-- of waking and sleeping and practicing and dining together. Of him throwing her cloak around her when they leave for her to work the market. Of her helping him master dexterity in his left hand. Of the rope binding them fraying and loosening.

Mirta watches them, suspicion giving way to resolve. She remembers her mothers words, before Fortune was born, before the soldiers came. 

"You are your sisters Keeper" she'd whispered, rubbing her burgeoning belly. "She will need you, count on you, Mirta, to guard and protect her, to be by her side always. She will see things no man should. Know things no man could. It is her destiny. I urge you, help her pursue it. The world turns swiftly, turning it's face to darkness. She is one of two that will help turn it back to light." 

She'd been a child then, only half taking in her mothers words. But now they come back to her. With the news of the King branching out his search for perfect parts, having already exhausted his supply of his immediate kin. Scarring or killing them in equal measure---she considers her mothers prophecy. See things no man should. Know things no man could. 

Yes, she thinks. That is Fortune. Even now, seeing more in this royal traitor, come to find refuge among them. Take up arms beside them. 

"A Light to burn away the darkness." Their mother had intoned. "A Predator to devour the creature that slithers on its belly, that has brought us further ruin." 

According to her mother, looking upon Fortune and Heron, sharing their breakfast on this day that is one of many in excessive heat; A Star and a Bird. 

Mirta swallows and nods at Aniel when he joins her, watching the carefully choreographed dance of captor and captive going through daily motions. The grace of their sparring. The shimmer of challenge in Fortune's good eye. The twinkle of achievement in him. "I think it is them." Mirta says, eyes sliding to her brother, waiting for confirmation. "Mother told me when we were small that I would be her Keeper. I must preserve her in her fight, it comes now Aniel, and I believe he is the partner she waits for."

A grunt. "How can you know it is not just a story made to entertain you"

"Stories may be all we have to rely on now. There was a raid in the main village last night. The king knows no limits. He will slaughter us all for his own gain. Nighttime tales or no we must believe in something Aniel, the time comes for us to rise. After all," And then her mouth curls, nodding again over at her sister who is of all things laughing as Heron stumbles in their steps. "We have Fortune on our side"

Fortune lets out a cry of triumph, narrowly dodging out of Heron's way as he thrusts toward her, the gentle loosening of the rope has allowed them more leverage each passing day--but now, when she leaps, it comes undone entirely, pooling on the dirt packed earth. Heron blinks. Fortune smiles. 

"The trust has been won," Fortune announces. 

Aniel begins to clap and Mirta joins in. "Tonight we celebrate."  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

September 2016

"I'm just going to use the washroom," Hope announces, rising from her seat and slinging her handbag--a rather large thing had Faye noticed---over her shoulder and turning down the hall. Faye nods and flips through her magazine, waiting for the secretary to call them in to the doctors office. 

Ten minutes have passed when Faye grows concerned. 

"Miss Dove? Miss Hope Dove?" the secretary calls.

"She's just, in the washroom, I'll find her," Faye assures her, taking off toward and her heart thumping too hard. She already knows what's happened. She should have questioned Hope's misleading willingness. She should have second guessed that purse. Hope has never been one to carry a heavy bag. She knocks on the door. "Hope?" she keeps knocking, softly at first but increasingly louder, harder. "Hope," she continues sternly, some part of her wishing Hope was just a stubborn child she could reprimand. "Hope?"

"Is there a problem?"

"Doors jammed," she smiles weakly, waits for the young women to return with tools and then the door gives and Faye stumbles in. And it's just what she thought. The room is empty. There's an open window. Hope's clothes from this morning are a neat pile in the trash. She backs out, pushing past the secretary, out on to the street, casting her gaze around, looking for any sign of her. Anyone with her hair, her stature, any clue. But the streets are empty. 

She closes her eyes, counts to ten, scrubs a hand across her face. Checks the time. Donovan should be dropping the girls to school by now. Meaning only stranger than fiction house guest Ichabod Crane will be home. She's not one hundred percent sure she trusts him yet, but she dials.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The house quiet and empty Crane rifles through the things they found at Cecilia's. Praying for anything that can help, that can---the sound of the back door. "Master Dove?"

"Not quite," when he turns he finds Hope standing in the doorway. Her garments have changed. No skirt and blouse but jeans, a tank, a jacket--the image winds him. She's dressed like the Abbie he knew but he doesn't dare hope that by some dumb luck her memory has returned. But something has changed, he can see it in the skittishness of her eyes. 

"Hope? I thought you were at the doctors"

"What's wrong with me modern medicine can't fix Crane." she crosses the room surprisingly quickly and grips his coat. "But I think you know something. Don't you? Don't you?"

"Hope."

Sensing his hesitation he pitches away from her. "I know you know something Crane. I can feel it. I need you to help me understand,"

"Did you run on Faye? she's going to be worried."

Her eyes narrow. "You're in on it too then? is that it? Well look I don't need you I'll figure this out," she turns on her heel before his hand snakes out grabbing hers. Her gaze flicks to their hands, to his eyes. 

Like back in Purga---she tugs away sharply, feeling pressure building behind her eyes. 

"I can't stay here." she says. "Just for a moment, I….I need to be alone. I can't get anything straight out of them. They love me and I love them but I don't want anymore meds, I don't want the whispers in the street, I just want sense."

"Hope, you, they're going to be worried sick, you can't just wander off alone,"

"Then come with me."

Crane sputters. "I can't…."

"Crane of all things please don't make me beg. Your car is out there isn't it? If you don't have answers it'll be good for me to be around someone as odd as I am." he raises a brow at that and she gives him a small, almost shy smile. "Take me somewhere. Anywhere. Please."

"You don't know me, Hope." though it pains him to say. At this moment her blind trust in him is almost frightening, as far as she knows, he's still a complete stranger. He wants to badly to take her in his arms, to call her leftenant, to unburden his heart--but he fears the headache that might launch itself upon her if he does. How can there be any hope of setting things right when anything that seems to hint at her life before, any memory, causes her such great pain? Calling her 'leftenant' had sent her keening to the floor. 

"I don't know me right now." she admits, her eyes shimmer with vulnerability. "But you look at me like you know me Crane. Like you really do. Anywhere and just talk to me. Where you go I'll go, just for today. Just for a bit."

"It's impossible to say no to you."

The briefest glimmer of triumph flickers in her eyes. Just then the phone begins to ring. Hope glances toward the sound. "Then don't. Quick, before Faye or Donovan get back, let's go."

Crane gets the door for her, slides into the drivers seat, and then they're gone.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The Life of Fortune

The Snake comes forward to the king, holding the spell book aloft. "These things, you need still. From your own line."

"I have scoured my line." Ro growls. "Two wives dead and another maimed. My children," he grunts bitterly. He took ones brain, another their left foot. Another child forfeited a lung. He did not survive. The village raid had brought in young children and maids, drained of their energy when the Snake called on dark spirits, wander in the slave quarters now, like the living dead. Yet he needs more. The stronger he is, the more he craves. He must be perfect. He must be all powerful. He will be a god. "There are no others."

The Snake sneers. "The spirits tell me differently, my king." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Her people dance. They drink and laugh. Tonight they all welcome Heron fully as their own. He sits beside her, pale dawn skin now turning toward the soft gold of the sunkissed, his leg bouncing against hers in time with the song one of them sings. She has never kept close friends and she finds it odd now that she is so comfortable, so quickly with this newcomer. The disturbing easy nature of it. She wants to turn away from this, this world is not the place nor time to forge deep bonds but Mirta had come to her some hours before, and her mind has been too busy since. 

"I believe it is your fate." she'd said. "And you know I distrusted him."

Not long after, disoriented and confused by Mirta's declaration she'd let the Star out, for the first time, had asked it to show her something for herself. It showed the Snake conferring with the king. Insisting the king had more family to cull from to forge his bewitched body--and then for the first time it showed her the past. It showed her people she doesn't know. It shows her Ro's father, the king before, and the woman he first loved, and her daughter, and the babe she bore, the child who's name would be hers. 

She Sees the truth then. Neice. All of this time, she has been of royal blood. The blood that made Ro flows through her. Mirta and Aniel too. But she knows he will want her, for her gift. For her all seeing celestial eye. Turning her gaze on Heron beside her she feels bile rise up in her mouth. 

Cruel fates have come to knock on her door and on top of all things, a confounding blooming tenderness toward this man, leaning to whisper some joke, she feigns laughter but she knows he sees through her. 

If it be destiny that has brought us together, it will be lineage that will tear us apart, she thinks solemnly, biting her lip. She rises from the revelry and retreats to her quarters, dimly aware that Heron is following close behind. 

"Fortune?"

She meets his gaze and drops down on the floor. She pats the ground. "Come here, and talk to me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a decent chance next chapter will be just Heron and Fortune, just sayin. 
> 
> And hey wheres Crane taking Hope?


	12. Chapter 12

The Life of Fortune

Crossing his ankles he sinks gracefully to the floor beside her. She smiles at that, it used to be a hidden thing, her smile, but Heron has been so amusing, so wicked in his own humour, she does not parcel them away anymore. He told her, the week before when she had backed him to the wall with the knife levered at his throat, her teeth bared at him, that he liked her teeth. The comment had been so bizarre she had blinked her brown eyes at him, startled into laughter, and all of the fervour of their spar was swiftly erased as she lowered the blade, swinging him away from the wall as she did so. "You are a strange man, Heron."

"So says the woman with stars in her eyes." he'd replied. 

"Just the one."

"No," he'd confided, bending low to be at ear level. "No Fortune I see stars in both. Look there, how this one shines," and he had brushed a finger on her cheek, below the brown one, easy as breathing. She ducks her head recalling it now. 

"What amuses you?" Heron asks, gently bumping her shoulder with his own. 

"Memories are a cruel thing." she says. "It visits without warning. With happiness and forgotten sorrows. A past that will not be buried."

"But these past things, Fortune, these past things reflect us. Who we were, who we are, they tell us who we might become."

"Does the memory of this not pain you?" she asks, taking up his scarred hand. 

"You told me it would not define me. You forced me to look past it. The memory pains me. But it shows me who I was then. And who you have made me, now." 

Fortune searches his eyes before dropping his hand only to have him take hers in turn. "Does the memory of your stolen eye pain you?"

"It has given me knowledge and a power I have doubted my ability to wield. It's purpose. I saw before, yes, but the Star magnifies, illuminates the darkest depths of the unknown." 

"And yet?"

"And yet I would gladly sever the throat of the Snake who took it from me."

"I can think of no better justice." he strokes a thumb along the back of her hand. She lets him. Lets this odd comfort keep seeping through her, into her, becoming the strange unnameable thing it is. It's so quick. So stealthy. She should distrust her heart, her core, her soul, for the connection she feels already to him. She had been ignoring it before, if she will admit it, it had begun to take root the first time she laid eyes on him, on opposite sides then, at the palace. She had tried to blame too much time tethered together. However Mirta's words bat around in her mind. Confirming what she has been avoiding. There is more to this than a rejected and scarred soldier finding home with the feisty and rebellious Seer. There is more to them. 

It has been showing her. Once the Star had felt her willingness to embrace the unfathomable depths of knowledge that it could plumb, it has been feeding them to her. Two. A pair. Halves made whole. Always. Forever. Right. Belonging. Let it. 

"Do you not want vengeance for your finger?"

"I am more aggrieved by the violence of that monster taking from you, than one simple digit." He looks down, his hair falling in his blue eyes. "I thought it would determine who I am forever. But no, in days you have repurposed me Fortune. You have renamed me from the man I once called myself."

Her mouth turns up at this, and his does in turn. "And what have I named you, in place of your given namesake for the Bird?"

His eyes peer deep into hers, he reaches to tuck a curling tendril behind her ear. Sharing close quarters has fostered this easy invasion of space. "What would you call me?" he breathes. 

"Ichabod," she licks her lips. "For whatever glory you once knew under that false king has fled you. For the glory of this false ruler, pretender of the Almighty, this paltry life of darkness and fear, it has fled you."

His eyes flutter closed with this new naming, bows his head as if waiting to be anointed. So she raises a hand, presses a kiss to her fingers and places them on his crown. "As you say I have changed you. I am changed."

"What would it mean, Fortune, bringer of futures, healer of wounds and souls, were I to rename you?"

"We will belong." she says, turning her head. "To you, to me, to the other." 

"You have Seen something," he concludes. 

"The king searches for more in his line, I am one. He will come for me, for the star's power. You must not let him, you must pluck it from me yourself should we be captured---"

He grabs her arms fiercely. "Hush!" he hisses. "Hush the wickedness that comes from your mouth! I could never lay hands on you, to harm you to---"

"But would you lay hands on me" she asks softly, fear of the this unknown fluttering in her chest, eye turned from his, as if speaking to the air. "Could you…could you love me, in this short span."

When no answer comes hot embarrassment washes over her skin, she tries to tug her hand from his but feels his grip tighten. "Let me name you." he says. "Whatever has brought me here, if we are to be bound, if I am to love you, let me name you. Let me make you mine, for I am yours."

"What will you call me?" she asks, turning toward him, let's him cup her face. 

"Abigail," he whispers reverently. "For in these darkest dangerous days you have brought me joy," his eyes brim with disbelieving tears. "Fragile precious joy I dare not squander."

"Do you understand what you speak? Will you fight with me?"

"I would fight beside you and for you."

"Would you die with me"

"Beside you and for you."

"Live,"

He lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses it, eyes peering tenderly at her. "Short days or long ones. I would live with you, and for you." 

"I have Seen it. The cursed thing cannot help but gift me glimpses of my future now."

"Tell me,"

"Our days are few," she whispers and he shuffles closer. "So few I dare not count. So few it makes me reckless here, with you." He cups her cheek, presses his lips to her forehead, lingers there. 

"Tell me,"

"We will die." he is closer now, bending his head towards her, to the crook of her neck, inhaling. 

"We all must," he says, breath warm on her skin, his nose gliding along tracing up to the bottom of her chin. "Tell me,"

"I will beg you let me go" his hands begin to curl around her small frame, hugging her to him. "But you will not." she manages. "You will never." She tilts her head back and he kisses her throat. "You will find me,"

"And?"

"You have named my soul, and I yours." her arms wrap around his neck, twining in his hair, legs around his waist as he rises and moves the short distance to where they sleep. He sinks down slowly. "Do you accept this? It cannot be undone,"

He looks at her, drinking all of her in. "It does not end here," he says it, rather than ask, as if he already knows, understands, that this sets their lives in motion, thus begins their course, their cycle. 

"It does not." 

"I knew the day I laid eyes on you, it would not be the last."

"It is too soon," she shakes her head to dissuade her from this, but his arms are so warm. 

"I choose to forge my fate, with you" And his lips finally find hers.

It's savage. The electric charge of something sliding into place. Of pieces fitting. It's wild and erratic. Logic obliterated, scattered, gone. Time is irrelevant, the days hours, years and eons are one, for this place here between them is eternity. Infinite. "Call me by the name you have given me," he commands softly as he moves inside her. 

"Ichabod," she exhales. 

"Abigail," he rains kisses upon her, drunk and delirious, she begins to laugh with it, stroking his muscled lean back as he carries on. This laugh, it transports him. Lifts his heart, spirit and soul. "To all others, the name of our birth."

"Yes," she agrees, happy, in this moment, content.

"To each other, from my soul to yours,"

"Ichabod," she captures his lips with hers again, searing passion threatening once more to take over.

"My Abbie," 

And they let the torrent crash on them again. 

Their first life, like a short fuse, burning fast and furious before it ignited, exploding into starbursts and sealing their divine destiny. 

Named the other by soul, so that whatever time, whatever place, by this name, would they know them.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
September 2016 As soon as they're out of the driveway, he guns it. 

Hope laughs. She braces herself in the seat as he floors it, feeling a secret ancient thrill he has long since denied himself, and the sound of Hope's laughter lifts his heart, his spirits, fills him with impossible, irresponsible, tempting ill-conceived notions. 

I'll just keep driving. He thinks, glancing at her covertly out the corner of his eye. I won't turn back, we can leave everything behind. Prophecy's destiny, apocalypse, all of it. We could run, we could be free. He's never been reckless, never the type to desert a cause, but for this one insane moment he entertains it. The possibility. Perhaps she would never remember who she was, who they were once together.

But they could start fresh. Find each other, all over again without the complications of saving civilization, the threat of the world crashing down around their ears. We could leave them, let them damn themselves or let them be overridden by whatever dark power, we could burn with the rest of the world into oblivion, but we will have had each other. He doesn't know where they're going but Hope doesn't ask. Her eyes are wide and she sits on the edge of her seat, buzzing and humming with energy. Why, he's inclined to believe that were he to suggest it, she might agree. 

"What if we did not return," he murmurs, the corner of his mouth turning up into a mischievous smirk. 

Hope regards him. An expression of quick calculating and logistics flitting across her features. "Are you suggesting we run away?" the eagerness in her tone is alarming. 

"Of--of course not, it's impossible---"

"It's not." she interrupts him. "I don't have much as funds go. But I could work anywhere. I have my passport." 

Alarm bells and red flags wave themselves about his head. Whistles blast in his ears. He cannot entertain it, and yet. "Did…Miss Hope did you plan this?"

"How could I know you'd be willing to go along with it?" she asks, but there's a coyness to her gaze that makes him think she was hoping he'd get to this on his own. That she was counting on it. 

"Where would we go," he finds himself saying quietly under his breath. It's official, he's cracked. 

"Anywhere," she breathes, and her voice, it's enchanting, like a spell weaving around him. She crackles with anticipation and a fearlessness that is so raw it borderlines on naiveté. 

"You're not thinking clearly Hope. No, we, we should return," trying so very hard to be a voice of reason. "They're….they'll report it, I'm certain, they'll declare you missing and say I've kidnapped you. I'll become a felon. They'll call you my hostage."

Hope considers this for all of ten seconds before firing back, "We'll tell them then. I'll even call Donovan, tell them we're going away."

"And you believe they'll accept that."

"They'll have to." she concludes. "What's their alternative?"

"Recall if you will the aforementioned concerns of being labelled a kidnapper." 

"So we'll be on the run," her eyes glitter. His resolve is weakening. 

"What's come over you?"

Hope touches his hand lightly. "Honestly? I've been living with the gaps and pieces for the past six months. Since yesterday, migraines not withstanding, I feel like I'm on the edge of something. I haven't been able to question or figure anything out and since you got here, all I have are questions, but with you answers seem possible. Seem close. Like, whatever mismatched fragments I'm made of can fit together to be something whole."

Crane sees the sign marking the turnoff for the highway coming up. Or he could turn the car around. "A quest, then? Is that what compels you? Self discovery?"

"Crane."

His fingers clench around the wheel, knuckles turning white. He chances a glance in her direction. 

"You." 

Crane merges onto the highway.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which ancient things travel a long way.

The phone keeps ringing.  Faye hangs up. "Damn it"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jenny mops her brow as she returns from their latest demon hunting bout with Sophie. Sophie drags herself in the trailer behind her. Ezra has gone home. 

"Exactly how long is this supposed to go on for?" Sophie groans as she leans forward, hanging her head between her knees. 

"Seven, damn, years."

"Exactly seven? or just seven tribulations."

"Sev--Foster are you trying to tell me this could be longer than that?"

Sophie grimaces. "I was definitely hoping that there was the off chance they could be dealt with, sooner." 

Jenny gives a half smile. "Yeah I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Beer?"

"Water. Work in the morning." 

Jenny raises a brow. "Another team bonding exercise." Sophie explains, rolling her eyes. "Because Danny seems to have completely erased how well the last one went." 

"Well, if you encounter anything that goes bump in the night, you'll have to go it alone." Jenny knocks back the drink, leans on the wall of her trailer. "Sent Crane Witness hunting and I haven't heard from him. Our call got cut off, haven't been able to reach him since." 

"You want help? finding him?"

Jenny shakes her head wearily. "No, I know where I'm headed. First thing in the morning so….three, hours from now. My life." she moans and Sophie snickers at her, rising from her seat.

"Well travel safe Mills," she says, patting her shoulder, feels the way Jenny tenses. "Jenny," she says, perhaps sensing the source of her friends discomfort. The quick nod Jenny gives her confirms it. "It never even crossed my mind, sorry."

"No, it's, it's cool. We all lost her. We all cope our own way. But if you could go easy on that one," she pinches her fingers together. "I'd appreciate it." 

"Sure thing. Call if you need anything. I certainly owe you one."

"Thanks Sophie…..have….fun? tomorrow?"

Sophie scoffs. "Yeah I'm bound to have a blast," 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You drive like a maniac!" Hope trills as Crane changes lanes. He'll be the first to admit, he's being an arse. Yet the pure exhilaration of being this wild and abandoned with her by his side, well he'll take all of the tickets and fines and jail time that might come with it. If caught. And having spent the last six months under Jenny's diligent tutelage, he can now say with utmost certainty that he knows how to evade the law. Even make contacts. He's made quite a few.  In fact one of them helped set him up with proper documentation to cross the border, when they get there. They'd used Hope's phone and she promptly, a little too eager for this life on the run business he thought---suggested they get a burner phone for any further arrangements. Ditch the current one. 

Tempting as it is to go completely off grid, part of Crane still wants to pretend he has this situation under control. He's entertaining Hope in a spontaneous getaway. At most two weeks, if not a few days. Just so she can cease being so unduly miserable at home. Although that leaves him with the rather great responsibility of ensuring this escape is the exact opposite of misery. 

Yet. He glances at Hope, her head turned out the window, and as if sensing his gaze turns to smile at him.  Yet the effort will all be worth it. 

"Are you hungry  Ab--" another lapse, "Hope? We could make a stop?"

"Abbie," she says softly, studying him. "Between us, for this trip, you can call me Abbie."

The blare of a horn before a car over takes them reminds him to stop gaping at her and to pay attention to the road. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Donovan arrives home the same time Faye does, both of them immediately scouring the house and releasing a stream of curses to find it empty. "I'm reporting it," Faye declares, starting for the phone when Donovan grabs it away from her. "What is wrong with you?"

"Wherever they've gone, he won't hurt her." Donovan says, scrubbing a hand across his face. "We were wrong Faye. Everything we thought we knew about him, even her. We were wrong."

"My sister in law," Faye starts, voice low and laced with disbelief, "Your _sister_ , a family member, has vanished, with a stranger," She stresses, fists clenching. Were this their daughters he would have called for a man hunt. "She's not well, Donovan. Let's call it what it is, and he's taken advantage of her."

"You don't understand, Faye."

"She's one of us, Donovan. Our blood, your sibling----"

"But she's not." he says at last and Faye cocks her head to the side, eyes narrowed. 

"Excuse me?"

"She's not my sister Faye. Not, not like normal people, I've always been an only child. I found her in the water yes, but Faye that was honestly the first time I'd ever set eyes on her in my _life_. We weren't raised together. She wasn't ever born here, hell how Cece was able to vouch for her before the blood test I don't know but….she's…." he shakes his head, turns away from his wife who has gone from simmering rage to a dull, numb expression, water brimming in her eyes. 

"Not ours." she finishes for him. "Is that what you're going to try to tell me Donovan after half a year together you want to tell me she's not ours? How? How could you? She's family to me Donovan, whether you think so or not and you've let her run off. Nothing you're saying makes sense."

"I only ever started painting those murals since she got here. She only started having even worse symptoms since Crane arrived. Faye he knows her. And I mean he knows her. This is…..this is real."

"What, is real Donovan." she won't meet his eyes now. She feels betrayed, whether by him or her own feelings of closeness to Hope who without warning abandoned them. She feels hurt by that. Yes she has heard Hope's cries for clarity, but she's in no way qualified to give her answers. To tell her exactly why things have happened the way they did. But she has grown to trust Hope and she had thought she trusted her. She found a sister in Hope. Even if Donovan is now trying to deny her. 

"The book of Revelations," he begins and her eyes widen. Surely Donovan is not going to attempt to use scripture on the end of the world to assure her of Hope's safety. "There are Two, two," he holds up his fingers, now struggling with delivering this truth himself. It's absurd. It's obscene. 

"Two," she prompts warily. Donovan screws up his mouth, grabs his wife by her wrist and leads her to his workshop. She follows mutely, lets her eyes sweep over the expansive painting again once inside. He takes a deep breath. 

"Witnesses. They fight together. Life, after life. And each time around, they have a network---" he cuts off because his pocket feels warm. The pendant. Puzzled, he reaches in to withdraw it and a light blazes from it, casting the mural in a glow. And then the images begin to move. 

"The hell…..." Faye backs away, eyes round in astonishment. 

"A network---" he struggles to continue. "Of, people, family members, Mother Cece was trying to explain it but I didn't understand, how she could have known---oh. It must be this," he concludes, gazing down at the gem in his hand that now is a glittering sparkling light. Like a Star. "Keepers. You know Cain and Abel? I guess a play on that. We---"

" _You_ ," she interjects, nostrils flaring and still watching in awe as the man in the grave claws his way out and staggers along a street. As an officer--"My God. Donovan, is that Hope?" she asks, gesturing toward the wall as she enters a jail cell and he proceeds to tell her how glad he is of her emancipation. 

Hope speaks. _"I'm sorry you're offended?"_

"What is this." Faye demands.

"I--I don't know," he gives up on trying to talk over it, it plays as if on screen. The other characters speak. 

It continues, it's unrelenting in this flood of information. When she drowned. _"No no no, Abbie,_ "

When they parted in purgatory. When he decided to take poison. " _There's another way Crane, there's always another way"_

The Headless Horseman. 

"Donovan Dove you explain this WITCHCRAFT to me right now"

"She's a Witness!" he blurts. "Hope, she was, this woman, here Abbie Mills--"

Faye squints at him incredulously. "Your, _cousin_?" she throws her hands up in the air. "And what, you're going to tell me he's one too?" when he doesn't object Faye scoffs. "oh my God. That's what you want me to believe, that those two are the Witnesses, and you're what, Donny? hmmm Donny Dove? Husband of mine? Love of my life, You're what---"

"Her Keeper. I guess one of them. Just like, how, that man, "---he gestures to the part of the wall replaying the decapitation of August Corbin-- "Was, and how I guess that's her sister there, Jenny, my other cousin was, and those other people. The back up, the army." 

"And _they lead the charge_." She concludes skeptically, brow raised to her hair line. "So. Say I believe you. And they are….Witnesses, THE Witnesses, partners, why doesn't she remember anyth---" and just as she asks it, the mural begins to answer. It shows her the explosion of Pandora's box. Hope/Abbie in the halfway place between life and death. The talk of eternal souls. Her journey back to earth. In a storm. 

 _The_ Storm.

The one that brought the bolt that struck her husband. 

The one that brought her rising to the lake, restoring Phoenix Grace's sight. The way her return was meant to signify the beginning of her new incarnate life with them --how her soul split. Faye turns her eyes on her husband who is staring in slack jawed awe. 

"So it's not just that I've inherited some weird off shoot of her duty." he swallows and then begins to chuckle, a laugh that doesn't sound entirely sane, "So now we know why she can't remember anything. Why it hurts. Because there's a literal whole inside of her. This is why---" he snorts, tears leaking from his eyes because if this is the clarity and truth Hope had wanted she would surely regret it now-- "---I've been painting, it's her soul trying to fill in the blanks. It's been trying to show me what happened, what's wrong. Storms must spark it. This is it Faye. This is the reason!"

Faye crosses the distance and reaches for his hand. She starts to hum, trying to comfort him and soothe herself. The melody from the unfinished hymn. The Star in Donovan's hand begins to glow brighter at the sound. But he's distracted by this absolutely insane conclusion.

 "Faye I have part of her _soul_." 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone wanna hazard a guess where I'm going with this? I wanna hear your theories!
> 
> More past lives coming up!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because I don't drop plot lines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PROMISE more ichabbie and past life ichabbie coming. 
> 
> Cuz I wanna have fun with them in their own chapter. 
> 
> ALSO 
> 
> MAJOR THANK YOU for your comments and theories! I LOVED THEM. thank you so much for reading this story and going on this journey with me and hang on cuz I'm no where near finished! :) <3

Winnie did it of course. Killed her husband.

He'd asked to talk to her, out in the wood. She'd gone because in the time when the passion was hot and they were wild and stupid, they'd make love there in the open wilderness. Or just talk. HIm holding her hand and caressing her bruised face and promising never to do it again. And she believed him, or tried to because she didn't have anyone else. And he was a well off man. Kept her in a big house in town, actually. Dressed her nice. Tore the clothes off her in a rage in the evening. Kicked in the walls. Worked for the FBI, he did. A higher up that somehow had kept managing to hide the devil he was inside from his coworkers and peers. Or else he knew just the right amount of cowards to turn a blind eye to it. 

But she'd believed he was just enacting part of their pattern. Hadn't known he'd reached the pinnacle of his obsession and had meant to end it. End her. Himself too, probably. But Winnie wasn't so weary of beatings that she was weary of life. And she'd fought him. Strength that she had never known had arisen and she fought him hard. She had bruises and scratches to show for it after---not so unusual given her own history with him---but when she got hold of that knife it was now or never. 

Afterward she had stood in horror of what she had done. Had run, gasping, panting, terrified, to Mother Cece. 

That old woman. 

That saint. 

"Go wash yourself off now," she'd said, rubbing her arms, humming softly to her. Same half done melody. "Don't worry. Don't say nothing. You hear?" Shivering and in tears she'd gone up stairs. She'd left the knife with the body. Foolish mistake that would come back to haunt her and deliver her at once. 

When Walters showed up to investigate Cecilia had greeted him at the door, answered all his questions, hospitable as hell before letting him question Winnie. She'd played as cool as a cucumber. Close to it as she could get. 

"I know you did it Winnie," he began. 

She kept mum. 

"Found this," he'd produced the knife, dry with her dead husbands blood and her finger prints on it. But her husbands too, she knew. That had to count for something. "You know what we found here, don't you?"

She blinked at him. "I'm sorry why are you here?"

"Ralph Hodge, your husband, was murdered, Winnie. Dear friend and colleague of mine." 

The fear she had of being caught manifested itself into properly shocked tears at the news. She could feel Walters studying her. Looking for cracks in her facade. She'd murdered an FBI Agent. She was looking at jail time if not the death penalty. While she was breaking down into tears, shoulders shuddering Cecilia had appeared carrying a tray of ice tea, shuffling slow with age, hawk eye sharp with wisdom. Handed Winnie a tissue and a glass and one to Walter's as well, looking them both over before giving Winnie an encouraging little nod and leaving them alone. 

"Nice lady," he'd commented after she left. "You know Winnie, I have a lot of dear friends. Folk that can hunt down every single bit of information about a person. People who can make others vanish." he waited while she mopped tears and blew her nose. "You know she's related to another acquaintance of mine," 

Winnie was still sniffling but her ears perked. His voice had taken on the edge of someone telling a lie. 

"Yeah sure. We go way back, that grand son of hers" he continues and Winnie knows he's not speaking in full truths. He may know of Ezra, but he doesn't know him. Everyone knows Ezra ran away from here and never looked back. It's unlikely this man would know anything about Ezra's extended family on an intimate level. But then he had just admitted he had people who could learn such things. Had access to the resources. The sudden change in direction had her gut twisting for a separate reason of her own fear. The steel in his eyes told her wanted something. Would bargain for it. 

And Winnie knew she damn well didn't have anything this man could want. 

Walters took a long pull of the tea and then leaned forward, smiling a little, like they were friends. "I know Ralph was a son of a bitch." he confides. Her widened eyes give her away. He nods. "Always took things too far. He hit you, didn't he?"

She almost asks how he knows before she remembers who he is. Who her husband was. She doesn't want to believe the Bureau would turn a blind eye to such violence there must have been someone letting him slide. Someone up top knew Ralph Hodge had a wife that he terrified on any given day of the week and had said, "I'll allow it" She distrusts this man sitting here in her refuge. Whoever he is, he's no more friend to her than Ralph had been. 

"Can't trust everyone." Walters supplies, reading her mind. "There are dirty hands in the world, no matter how pristine the gloves." he leaned back, casual like they were just shooting the breeze. "I know it was self defence. Found his prints on there too. Your skin under his finger nails. His shirt was torn--attacked you right? I won't tell. You won't ever see a court room, no one will ever know." 

"You said he was your friend." 

"He's an Abuser now. That changes things. Listen, I can make all of this disappear, Winnie Hodge. If you do me one favour." his gaze ticked to the door that Cecilia had not too long ago walked out of. "I'm looking for someone, and I think he'll turn up here. He's under surveillance for an operation we're running. Has information we, the organization need," he stresses. "He's been cooperative but only so far. I think he's withholding on us. All I ask of you, is keep your ear to the ground. Find out what she's involved in, anyone related to her, and you call me if he turns up here."

She opens her mouth to refuse, to declare she would never spy on a woman who has been there for her so much before Walter's cuts her off. "If you don't I can make it look like a homicide." 

What he's doing is unethical, illegal, extortion. Every name under the sun. He should be going to jail for suggesting it, but what is her proof when all of the evidence is in their hands? 

If the same people who knew Ralph was hurting her and someone let it pass, who's to stop this man from pegging her with murder? Who knows how high up he is? 

"Don't look so frightened, Winnie." he'd said calmly. "Just tell us anything you hear. Anything, unusual."

"How, unusual."

"You'll know the kind." he assures her, rising from the table. "I've got some others to interview. Thank you for your time." he hasn't even asked if she agrees to the terms. 

"Who?" Winnie asks, voice soft and scared, hands shaking because she knows she can't go back from this. She's so sorry. Already she's so sorry. Walters suspects she'll blab it all to Cece afterwards but he could care less. He already had the address of her relative, he'll be visiting the Dove's later. And some other folk in town too, to complete the ruse that they tried to solve Ralph's murder. 

"Ichabod Crane," he'd smiled. "One call, Ralph's case goes cold. And you go scott free, money and everything to disappear. You can leave this all behind you."

That had been months before. In which they made a good show of harassing her day and night in questioning, around and around in circles. An absolute torment, wondering if it was all part of Walters ruse or if they were planning to swing her for killing Ralph after all.   
~~~~~~~~~~~  
Walters had shown up at the Dove residence, asking a few preliminary questions, confirming the relation to Cecilia Gordon. Residents of the household. Just them and the two girls, they'd said. He was pretty sure he'd caught them exchanging a glance when they believed he wasn't looking. He intercepted one of the girls out front when he was leaving. Glory. 

"If a man comes around here, strange guy, named Ichabod Crane, you let me know, okay? He's investigating something for me," 

She'd agreed. 

No wonder she was so suspicious when Ichabod turned up. Worried he would tell that frightening Walters man about how suddenly strange her family might become. 

And she still doesn't trust him either.  
~~~~~~~~~~~

Winnie had told Cece about Walters offer, course she did. 

Cece didn't judge her, wasn't concerned that the FBI might be especially interested in her family. Or this man that might turn up. "We can handle ourselves child. You gotta survive." 

When Ichabod Crane showed up at her door, a week after Cece had passed she hadn't known whether to panic or rejoice. She'd sat on the information of the visit all day until he and Dove had come to call. 

And she noticed the 'strange' Walters had told her about. Something, odd. 

One thing to tell the creep that Crane had arrived. Another to keep mixing up Mother Cece's family in whatever the hell this was. So she welcomed them clearing everything out of the house that they could. If there was something they needed, she let them take it. She might not know Dove well but she knows he isn't a foolish man, and Crane had endeared himself to her when he'd broken down into tears at his earlier visit. 

Even after they left she kept it. The hour was late anyway. She considered ignoring the offer and letting Walters think nothing had come of it. 

Weighed the consequences and how likely he was to follow through on trying to make her look like a cold hearted murderer if she didn't comply. 

She would call the following morning. "He was here," is all she says before she hangs up. Well, he told her to call, and that had been it. No details. Winnie doesn't dare to hope for her freedom but she checks her account anyway. Whatever game Walters played he kept his word on this. She'd be out of town by sunset, far away as she could get. 

Not an inkling that Crane would be gone by then, too.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Alright Reynolds lets get this party started," Sophie casts her gaze around the lot, looking for her peers, for buses. Anything that indicates this team building weekend. "Where is everyone?"

Danny bites his lips together, saunters forward with his hands in his pockets. "Here it is Foster. No such thing. It's just you and me on this one."

"You and me." she repeats, unimpressed.

"I got a call from Walters. You know anything about treasure hunting? Cause he seems to think we do." he hands a sheaf of papers over to Sophie, she shuffles through them, brow furrowing. These sound familiar. She meets Danny's gaze. "Yeah. We might be away for a while."   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
He cannot bring himself to do it. To think it is one thing but if he gives in to calling her Abbie, he will lose himself entirely and frighten her off. He's sure of it. 

"Crane?" she presses. 

"Why," he asks, peering into the rear view mirror. "You said it sounded, 'old'"

"Well I can't help the name I'm given, I don't dislike it. Rolls off the tongue doesn't it? Abigail Hope Dove. It's just, you seem to be having the hardest time not using my first name. So if its more natural to you," she shrugs. "I don't mind if you, just you for now use it." 

He caves. "Abbie," his voice rumbles low, filling the confined space of the car. It fills her with warmth. The deliberate weightiness of it, as if he's savouring the syllables. Reverent, almost. 

"That's not so hard, is it?" she asks, eyes twinkling. 

"No, I suppose it's not. Just to be sure, now's the time to change your mind," he says. 

"Consenting and willing I am still game Crane. Ride or die." 

It hits him like a punch to the gut. Oh in many ways she may be changed but there is still something fundamentally Abbie about her. Some part of her core makeup still exists there, if only she could tap into it. "Indeed," he agrees, making a turn off. 

"What are you doing?"

"If we're going to be convincing, we should have luggage. All of my belongings are still at the Dove residence. And you didn't pack." he says pointedly. Her mouth curls. 

"we're going shopping?" there's entirely too much glee in her voice and he direly fears what abomination this version of the woman he loves will try to force him into. And he allows himself to briefly savour the turnabout of him providing for her. 

Bless his frugality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like there's a man hunt. Anyone wanna hazard a guess what Walters wants Sophie and Reynolds to 'treasure hunt'?


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wedding. Something bad. 
> 
> this is going to sound achingly familiar.
> 
> But remember I don't do conventional, so SHELVE the outcry because I'm not leaving it like that. 
> 
> you'll know which It I mean. 
> 
> Trust me!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love you guys! your input your comments everything! thank you!

The Life of Fortune

Angeli Choru was the musician in Ro's court. A gift, to his first wife---the one whom he slew for her abundant heart---and went untouched under Ro's rule. 

She had had no family to speak of, when she came to the court, and sang, though she had no tongue, and her throat luminous with gold, a miraculous wonder, a voice that sounded like many in one. Like an orchestra, like the heavens opened, a complex myriad of sounds. A Chorus. The Snake, a disgusting leech,  had been charmed by her talent, sure that wonder of a creature may have been like him, dabbling in dark arts. He did not ever suspect her to be sent by the Divine Almighty. So the Snake commanded that no harm be done to her. The first wife delighted in this odd musician. 

And no one questioned how a woman with no tongue could sing. 

Nor why when she bent her head low, her crown seemed to shimmer with light. 

Nor why if one passed too closely by her side, they would feel the gentle rustle of feathers brushing against them. The flapping of a wing. 

She watched this reign of terror and waited. She would go to Them in time. 

~~~~~~~~~~

"What are you drawing," Fortune grumbles sleepily  tucked in his warm embrace. Seven days they have spent like this. Routine and plotting dictating their day, and at night, twined around the other. Heron's fingers draw lazy patterns on her side, down to hip, over thigh and back up. But after a moment she begins to realize the design is not at random. He traces a very deliberate path. Turns and corners. This way left. This way right. Straight ahead. "my Ichabod," she presses and feels him hum at the name. She does not often use it, the name of his soul, but it sends tremors through him when she does. "What is it you draw"

"The palace grounds," he rumbles. "The  route to entry. Past the guards. Through chambers. To the Throne room. I have memorized it."

"I am to trust your memory after this time away?"

"You have not filled my brain so much as to crowd out what I once knew." he bends and presses a kiss to her crown. "But it has been a challenge not to let you over run me entirely." 

Fortune feels silly with Heron and it is such a dangerous thing. She has never known the level of frivolity she feels when with him. "I am tired," she says softly, patting his hand to still it. "We complete our plans come sunrise. Not before. Do not touch me unless to love me." she murmurs, a yawn just barely obscuring her words. 

"Not such a hard task. " He concedes, and then whispers, "My Abbie."  

"Sleep, you great Bird," she teases, turning her back towards him and she feels him chuckle into her hair as he nuzzles behind her ear. 

"I have one more plan to finish,"

She makes an agreeable, drowsy noise. 

Twining his fingers with hers, one of them overlaying the place of the one he lost, he says, "I wish for us to be joined."

"In what further way." she groans. She cares for him. She loves him. But he is talkative at the worst of hours and irritable come morning for this reason. She has scolded him multiple times for it. Even before they first lay together. 

"Before God and Man." 

The room fills with light for her sleepy eyes have snapped open, and the Star comes out too, peaked by his suggestion. 

"We will have other lives, Ichabod." she says, voice low and confidential. "We will always be together."

"Time will change us," he replies. "I cannot know how much or how little time we will have when our paths cross next. Let us begin this fight with me knowing at the very least that I have done this. If by some chance we die too soon. If for some reason I am foolish. If the time is never right, let me know I have had you as wife in the life we have now, Abbie." 

Rolling towards him he only squints against the light of her starry eye. "Wife," she repeats, a strange foreign word she has never applied to herself. Would never have. 

 He smiles, "Wife." 

"You are a greedy man." she taunts. "To want not only my body, my soul, but to brand me as well." 

His face falters for the briefest second, a flicker of uncertainty. 

She gives him a half smile. "This fool. _You_ are my destiny? You with your pleas and enticements and too long limbs? How could the Almighty have fated me so? Why did the Star not show me long ago so that I could outrun you---guard turned rebel who wants to flaunt me as his own. Why did the Star not show me how foolish you would make me? How a Bird would give my heart wings? _You_? You are my beginning and end?" she asks incredulously and he is taken in by the humour dancing in her eyes as she reaches up to caress his cheek.  "How soon would you declare me yours, and yourself mine, before all who know us. Before He who gives us breath?"

"At sunrise." 

She kisses him sweetly, winking her starry eye shut. "Sunrise." she agrees. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the middle of the night Angeli Choru fled the palace, evaded guard and Snake. At dawn there was a flutter of wings and Heron and Fortune awoke to a woman in their camp. Shining from within. 

"I have come to sing for you," she sings. "I come to sing you a hymn for Eternity. May the Glory of God unite you throughout the ages. I will sing each piece to you, each harmony and melody a gift.  And this song when performed by those descended from me, will be a power so great, it will heal all wounds, of the soul and body. It will thwart all foes, mortal and beyond. It will right all wrongs. It will be infallible in the hands of those who wield it. All impossibilities made possible. All boundaries shattered, for with God in his infinite wisdom and abundant Love, there are no barriers that cannot be crossed. It will represent the Omnipotence of the Lord your God, and truth and divinity of his chosen soldiers, for whom I sing it." The people of the camp had covered their ears and gone to their knees. 

Overwhelmed by the melodious voice of Father and Mother and all instruments of jubilation joined in one. "It shall be hidden from you, until you have need. And when you have found the parts, my descendant shall play it for you. And this great power from the Lord itself will be yours to wield." 

Every word of this declaration a melody, a voice entrancing them, and then she begins to sing. Nine parts. Nine voices. Nine sacred gifts in which this song would be hidden,  sounding as one. In the thrall of this music Heron and Fortune beheld each other, peering deeply into the others eyes. Murmuring softly their vows and allegiance. 

And their fellow rebels looked on, and knew in the battle to come, they had God on their side, for He  had brought them Fortune to lead, to turn the tide, to outsmart and bewilder the wickedness of King Ro, and Heron, to fly, to protect and stand beside her. 

Before God and Man, and Angeli Choru, they were wed. 

They love one another tenderly that night. Deeply, deeply as the fathomless depths of the sea. Committing to memory the taste, smell and feel of the other. Of every sound they made. Of skin and wrinkle and how bodies arched and toes curled with satisfaction and pleasure. Of the others voice, the pants and moans and sweet, sweet endearments they whisper between kisses and sighs and diligent hands. 

"Ichabod, my husband." 

"Abbie, my wife." he purrs, so content as they sleep. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the morning they wake to screams. 

Fortune knew it would be today, before her last sigh she had Seen it. That the planning and plotting would be for nought. The Snake had summoned whatever devil to find her. The guards are here for her now. Heron screams for her as she is torn from his grasp. 

"Let me go," she begs him, fulfilling her own prophecy. _'I will beg you let me go'_

He lunges for her, clawing savagely at the men who have come. There is the sound of bloodshed outside. Of screams and grunts and murder. Of throats slit. Of gurgling mouths full of blood. "I will not!" he howls defiantly. 

"Ichabod!" she commands, and he knows what she asks him yet he cannot he refuses to take---but she blinks at him, and out floats the star. A sparkling shimmering thing leaves her socket and drifts to him. Such a precious powerful light. 

"No." he chokes. " _No_ , I will not let them" he struggles against the men fighting him, terrible strength filling him. These same guards held him down while they torture him, these same ones now he draws the knife and cuts them down. He shows them that the pain they inflicted did not cripple his spirit--he has her to thank for that. 

One of the guards reaches to catch the star and he chops their hand off for it. It's a small, ironic  victory as they vanish out the door and he continues to follow them, deafened by the sound of a small war happening outside. He catches sight of Aniel and Mirta, quick and deadly as they fight but he keeps trailing the guards who have Fortune, and the Star hovers closely with him, nestling in the crook of his neck as he runs and fights. 

" _No!_ " he yells again, scrambling. To her credit she fights, fights enough to break free and run to him, into his arms. "Take it back Fortune take it back." he commands, plucking the Star and holding it to her. She shakes her head, tears streaming down her face. 

"I must _go_. You must keep this and use it. This is the order of it. Let me go to my destiny,"

"I will NOT" he cries. 

She pulls back, folding his fingers over it and then holds his face between her hands. "My name." she pleads. "The name of my soul, Ichabod."

" _Abbie,_ " he weeps, his heart breaking. 

If this is what follows, if every separation will sear his soul like this, he questions his ability to do it. To live life after life knowing this pain will come. That this is the feeling of loss he will call companion when they are apart. His deep well of pain. He feels as though he is crumbling inside, his knees weakening, everything within him becoming tatters. " _ **Abbie,**_ " he cries again, clutching her fingers pressed into his face. By Grace of God alone they have this moment together in the turmoil. That her kin fight so valiantly still, protective so quickly of the two of them. Their Star and their Bird. 

Her brown eye and the one now dark as night glisten with tears.

"You will find me," she assures him. "Not because I have Seen it, but because you love me. And where I go, you shall follow. I love you, Ichabod. You will _find me_ ," her voice full of such conviction before at last some guard gathers the strength to heave her out of his grasp, they strong arm him so he can no longer fight. 

"Abbie!" he howls. " _ABBIE NO_ "

~~~~~~~~~~~~

September 2016

" _NO_ " Crane grumps inside the dressing room. "No I am not coming out like this. I cannot."

"Come on," she teases. "I'm wearing the dress you picked."

"You look fetching in lilac," 

"Don't you trust me?" she wheedles. He grunts before drawing the curtain. She releases a breath. "I knew you'd look good in green." she says. He turns toward the mirror, a little irritated that she's right. And that the yellow collared shirt beneath the vest doesn't offend his senses as much as he swore it would. He fidgets however, because she demanded he wear something without the coat, which she has draped carefully across her lap. He'd dare say he feels cold. 

"Are you satisfied?" he bites out. At the very least he's glad to know she didn't choose something so wildly demented as skinny jeans. Although he's sure he saw her sneak a plaid shirt into the pile of clothes they are taking. 

"Very," 

He flushes under her gaze before going back behind the curtain. 

"What are you doing?" she demands. "If I'm wearing this out, so are you. Ring us up will you?" she says to the clerk. Crane pokes his head back out of the dressing room, flummoxed until he sees her slinging her arms into the sleeves of his coat. His breath leaves him. 

"Are you cold?" he inquires, joining her at the counter. 

She tugs it around her body, surely too big and almost too long and yet somehow despite the obvious mix matched measurements she looks perfect in it. "I was," she confesses, then turns in the mirror. "But, it's also, cozy. Comforting. I guess I understand why you haven't taken it off, once." and then, to his horror, begins to shirk it off. 

"No no no," he protests, stilling her hands, sliding it back on and pulling it around her small waist. If he's honest she positively dwarfed in his coat but the image of her wearing his belongings warms his heart so. She looks at him quizzically. "Please." 

"Alright, alright, give the man what he wants, right?" she laughs, looking over at the store clerk who seems absolutely amused by the two of them. 

"Where are you headed?" the clerk asks. 

"Oh," She answers. "We're running away," she casts a wicked look over her shoulder at Crane. His neck feels hot. 

"Eloping?" the clerk asks again, eyes wide, mouth smiling. 

"N--" Crane starts before she cuts him off again, enjoying this farce. 

"Yes. Family  doesn't approve so,"

"How romantic!"

She giggles as she feels his disapproving gaze slide over her. "Indeed," he says. 

"Well best of luck!"

"Thank you" Crane chimes, taking the bags in hand and leading them back out to the car. He gets the door for her. "You're impossible," he muses. 

"Why, thank you." she flutters her lashes at him. "I was worried I was being entirely too agreeable." 

He smirks at her, shaking his head as he starts the car. "Alright then ' _wife_ ' let's get back on the road."

"Sounds like a good idea, ' _husband_ '" 

The absolute wild, ridiculousness of it all, even if it is all in jest.

There's a  peculiar rightness to it. As if they had called one another such before. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sophie frowns at the list. "The Star of Fortune?"

Danny bites his lips together. "Your guess is as good as mine. Nine others like it. The Glory of God, the Miracle of Hope, the something of Victory and this of Love, what is this?"

Sophie's heart sinks. "I have a bad feeling." 

~~~~~~~~~~~

"So what happens to you Donovan?" Faye asks, leaning her head on his shoulder. 

He hefts the glimmering pendant in his hand, considers the blinding light coming from it. Shining so bright. Showing them things, Seeing things they could not. 

Faye follows his gaze. "Maybe we could use this." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gee, wonder where this is headed.


	16. Chapter 16

"What _is_ it, exactly?" Faye wonders, reaching to take it from his hand.

"Winnie said was a pendant Mother Cece wore.I guess under her shirt because I don't recognize it. Said there was something in the will about hoping I find something to guide me or….something," he frowns as he looks down at and the strange illuminating glow it carries. 

"It made the mural move, to show, tell us the story of….who Hope was, before. Maybe you can ask it to show something else." 

"Such as?"

"Maybe it can tell us what it _is_ , for starters." Faye checks her watch and scratches her head. "Side note, what do we tell the girls? Auntie Hope went on holiday with Mr. Crane?" she cringes. "I'm not comfortable with the questions I'm gonna get with that one." But Donovan isn't paying attention to her grumbling, he's staring into the palm of his hand. 

"Donovan?"

"I asked it," he says. "I think it's showing us."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Life of Fortune

He stands among the battered and broken, deep rooted fury burning inside him. The glittering light of her eye hovers on his shoulder. He takes in her people, his people, groaning, bloodied, helping one another to their feet, covering the dead. Turning their eyes on him. Weeping for the loss of their leader. He knows their pain, feels it in the pit of his being. Anger, red hot and tasting like rust floods through his veins. 

" _You will **find me**_ " 

"Yes." he says to himself. "Yes I will. This isn't over--Mirta! Aniel! if you live answer me!"

"Hear how he hollers as if to command me," Mirta drawls, eyes narrowed. There's a bleeding gash on her arm that she is tying off as she approaches him. "What, what is it you want."

"To go after them. After her."

" _You lost her_ " Mirta growls, tears startling to her eyes. She feels betrayed. Was she not the one who told Aniel she believes he's the other part of the whole? was she not the one who told Fortune he is her partner to bare this lot in life? And now what. He couldn't even protect her, much less wield this prophecy set out before them. She is so hurt she could cut him down where he stands. Clean across the neck. A quicker, more merciful death than she would like, frankly. Loosing her little sister to those brute monsters Ro calls guards does not make her feel charitable. 

"I did." he agrees. "But if you kill me, what is your hope of getting her back?"

"There is none. They'll take what they want from her and enslave or kill her. And we'll all live under a more oppressive terror." 

"It is not her time, nor mine, to die." and he reaches for the Star on his shoulder and holds it out. Mirta gasps, backing away from him. 

"Aniel," she hisses. "Aniel he has the Star."

From behind a wall where he had been presumably catching his breath Aniel lurches forward, fist drawn back. "Did you take it from her monster? to deliver to the king?"

He glowers at them. "She gave, it, to me. I could _never_ \--" he begins, voice lifting in a rage, he thinks better and goes silent. But the accusation is so raw and his pain so real he gives up the fight to rein himself in and roars."

 Like a wounded beast. 

Like a raging fearsome animal.

 It tears out of him and the people who remain watching this confrontation fall into a hush.

" _ **I would never harm my wife**_ ," he says heavily, chest heaving. "She gave this to me, because she knows our part in this better than anyone. No doubt she Saw it and gave it to me to guide us. She knows the King wanted it."

Mirta weighs his words. "Tell us then." she says. "She'll be dead at sunrise if they find she doesn't have what he wants." 

His eyes flash. Gone is the awkward new comrade, who happened to be able to fight. Gone is the guard who defied cruel masters. Here is a new man, one made for war. One who is prepared to die, whatever the cost. A man who is vengeful and will take no prisoners.

"Who will fight with me," he calls. "Who will fight with me!" he demands again.

There is quiet. The sun beats down. Sweat drips off his skin. 

Aniel blinks. "For Fortune." he steps to Heron's side. 

Mirta bows her head resolutely. " I am my sisters Keeper." she says and  joins opposite "For Fortune."

"For Fortune!" Heron challenges. "She who saw and healed for you, WHO WILL FIGHT FOR HER" and the people answer: 

"I fight."

"We are eachothers Keeper"

"With you"

"For her" 

"With the Bird."

"For Fortune."

"The Star and Bird"

"I am my sisters Keeper."

"For freedom"

"I am her Keeper."

"For Fortune." 

"FOR FORTUNE" 

They begin moving, those who are able, gathering weapons, gathering their packs. Heron lets the Star resume its post on his shoulder, hiding behind his curtain of hair and leads the march from camp. 

" _You will find me_ ,"

"Always." he says. "Every time."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

September 2016

Faye reels back. "Was that," 

Donovan inhales deeply through his nose. "Crane?" he nods with his eyes scrunched tight. "It sure looked like him didn't it."

"Donovan, this," she reaches tentatively to take the mystical thing from his hand. It's warm.

Something…..happens in her brain. A sort of….buzzing? a distant sound…..and her eyes water before handing it back over to him. He watches her strangely. "That, thing. I think it just answered your question Donovan. That's the _Star_. The one it just…." she gestures vaguely. "Showed us. That's, _it_ " 

"Are you okay Faye?"

"Hmm?" she asks, rubbing her arms, scratching her back. It …something feels like it's….tickling her. Her neck. "fine, let's head back inside Donovan. Mother Cece seems to be the authority on this since she had that." she points to it, glowing contentedly in his palm. She's finding it hard to focus looking at it. "There must be something inside that will, explain it."

"It could probably just show me." He says. 

"It's giving me the creeps." she says at last, and with that heads for the door, still shrugging and shirking beneath her jacket. He frowns as he watches her go. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"This is an FBI operation Foster we have no business getting citizens involved. Even if it is Jenny."

"Ssssh" Sophie admonishes, phone in one hand, papers in the other she is shaking. Crane went with Walter's after Abbie died. But he'd never discussed what exactly they had wanted. But this, things he wants them to find, sound distinctly like something Crane and the gang would be scouting for. Like part of their mission. It goes straight to voice mail. She curses, running her hand through her hair and dialling again. 

"Foster."

"Come on, come on Jenny pick up," she pleads. 

"Let it go. He must think someone wants to smuggle them, they must be worth money."

Sophie groans. "Danny." she hisses. "DANNY." She whacks him with the papers and jabs her finger in his chest. "This. Is not. About. Money."

Danny scowls at her, knowing but refusing to go down the lane she's willing to skip merrily toward. He won't. He only ever had one cause to go into that maelstrom and nothing can make him do it again. Apocalypse be damned, he's managed to stay the hell out of it since she died. This is supposed to be her fight. Maybe he'd help her with it, hell, even help Crane, but….he just can't. "No Sophie," he says flat out. "We're not going to make this about things that go bump in the night. We find the artifacts. Whoever's dealing them. Lock'em up. They get put in a museum. We go back to our lives."

"Danny" she insists. 

"I said no."

"You don't get a say in whether or not to save the world. It's not the job you signed up for." she snaps and begins marching toward the car. "Wanted to have part in that discussion you should've been a bad guy but you're not. So let's go."

Grudgingly he follows her to the vehicle, lets himself in the passenger side. "Where to." he asks tightly. 

"Take a wild guess Reynolds. Use your deductive reasoning. All that training. You'll figure it out."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Life of Fortune

_This way left._

_This way, right._

_Straight ahead._

She disarmed her guards quickly. They hadn't taken her to the king. They didn't know that what he wanted was already gone. Only one with a clue Heron had chopped his hand off. They'd said something about the king needing the dark of night to complete the ritual. 

With any luck he would be dead before then. If she got her directions right. She smiles to herself a little as she navigates the halls. In retrospect grateful that Heron had been so diligently tracing a map on her thigh, mere hours before. She pats a sword in her belt--one of the guards--and two daggers. She frightened  a passing servant into switching garments. They hadn't fussed much, a vacant look in their eyes. She recalled that there had been whispers of children and babes taken, energies sucked away to cultivate a youthful soul for this unholy shell the king wished to inhabit. But she need only get to the kings chambers first. If she can accomplish that, kill him in his sleep. Their mission will be complete. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The sky darkens by the time they arrive, skulking around the perimeters and following Heron's instructions to get inside. He knows his destination, to meet her in the kings chambers. The Star showed him, as she must have known it would. Though he has brought with him a small army, he directs them in places to hide and moves forward only with Aniel and Mirta at his side. "Detain any guard that passes by here." he warns them, and then callously. "I do not care by which means you do it." They nod obediently, some of them gleefully brandishing knives as they sink into shadows. He waves the siblings ahead with him as they move. 

They find themselves outside the throne room. A wave of nostalgia hits him. It was here it began. This place here, when he first laid eyes on her, come to tell futures for the King that his life would be set in motion. Theirs. The Star on his shoulder pulses. He smirks and shakes his head. She must be on the other side, there's a hall that off shoots from the throne room---because Ro is so vain and self glorifying he had requested his chambers be moved. So protective is he of his title and glory. So protective he would kill for it. 

Knives drawn, they push against the door and it whispers open. Cautiously they advance with him at the head before the Star stutters, as if blinking a warning. He looks over his shoulder too late. 

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short Chapter sorry!
> 
> more coming this week, just working out a few kinks.

"Aniel!" he cries out but the darkness swallows him up whole. The darkness, he realizes with terror, is a living, writhing mass. Spreading swiftly through the room, along the walls. Just as he turns to call out to Mirta he catches just a glimpse of her hand disappearing into it. "Mirta!" he roars. "What is this?" he demands of the stifling dark. "What is the meaning of this?"

And to add to his horror, eyes, slit, like a snake, luminous and massive wink open in the blackness. Several snapping mouths lurching out towards him with fangs dripping tar. His gut clenches. Men he can fight, but what is this….thing. "You have come too late, traitor," it hisses, and he recognizes the voice of the King's advisor, The Snake. "She is already dead."

By his ear, the Star blinks a sudden furious red. He's lying, he thinks. "What have you done to them?" he asks. "What have you become? It was the King that sought to become an abomination, not you."

The heaving thing quivers with laughter. "The King needed, would you believe, my devilish limbs. All of the organs he amassed, and in the end he still needed me, my skeleton, tinted with the blackest of magic, on which to hang his new form. What you see here, is all of the power that resided within me, in all it's beautiful, terrible glory free of its mortal coil." It cackles as the black pools surge toward Heron's feet and he skips away. "Where are they, Aniel and Mirta?"

"Snuffed out." he replies. "Their light dampened by the encompassing dark. They will suffocate in here, in due time. Their light becoming shadows and greater fuel to me."

"What purpose do you serve the king now as you are" he asks, fighting the urge to wretch. 

"I am a loyal pet, through and through, guard. Though the same cannot be said of you." 

"And look how he has rewarded you." he snarks.

"I'm going to gift the king those eyes of yours. He has envied them so."   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
September 2016

They pull up outside one of the tunnel entrances and only because it's started to rain does Danny sprint inside with Sophie. 

"You might as well brief me," he grumbles. 

"I'd bet my badge this has something to do with Abbie."

Danny squashes the nauseous feeling of grief that bobs to the surface and presses on. "What about her."

"I don't know all the particulars, but I'd bet a book in here can explain it." She pushes the doors open and stops short. "Oh. Mr. Mills."

Ezra looks up from one of the books he's pouring through, Jenny left first thing in the morning, he's not even sure she slept, had merely sent him a text saying "Gone Crane hunting" He'd come here trying to see if there was something they had missed in finding the next witness. Something he hadn't understood. Jenny had already told him that his grandmother had passed, and he had been holding that grief in very tightly since. He had been wrong to abandon his family the way he had back then, and unseemly habit he had indulged in again when Lori's visions began to plague her---he'll be paying for those instances of cowardice for some time to come. But the least he can do, is commit to this fight, this world, he has run from, and that keeps seeking him out. 

"Can I help you?" he asks, eyes narrowing as Danny looms behind her. He had a mild respect for the man due to profession but his abrupt distancing from the cause after Abbie's death--while understandable, had reminded Ezra too strongly of himself. A man running from what he doesn't understand. Happily retreating back into ignorance. He dislikes him for it. 

"This," Sophie thrusts the list under his nose. Ezra huffs, praying for patience before he begins reading. 

"Damn. Walter's give this to you?"

Sophie and Danny exchange a glance. "Yes," the admit slowly. 

He kisses his teeth and shakes his head. "The society."

"What society."

"The one George Washington wanted Crane to lead. They…they're supposed to, help, with this," he waves vaguely in the air. "Business, but---"

"Sometimes agents turn" Danny supplies. 

"I'd thought maybe…." he trails off. "I'll tell you what I know but after that, we gotta catch up to Jenny."

"Why," Sophie asks. "Is she in trouble?"

"One thing to look for the Witness." Ezra grumbles, slinging his arms in his coat. "This, something else entirely. Let's go."  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"Where's Auntie Hope?" Phee asks when they come home, Donovan promptly disappearing to continue rummaging through Mother Cece's things, conferring with the Star. Faye jumps. She's been itching all day and it's driving her to distraction.

"Hmm?" 

"Auntie Hope---mom are you okay?" Phee cuts off, peering curiously at her mother who is now also wiggling a finger in her ear. 

"Fine, honey. What did you ask? oh! oh, Hope, her and Mr. Crane, turns out they're old friends." she smiles but it feels forced even to her. 

Glory, in all of her quick assumptions and suspicion and at times, frightening protectiveness raises a brow. "Old friends?"

"They've gone on a trip, to catch up,"

"When will they be back?" Glory asks, and Faye frowns because somehow the room seems too bright all of a sudden. And she's itchy. She's had chicken pox already hasn't she? Is she allergic to something in the backyard? she twists her arm to keep scratching at her back. 

"She'll call when she's ready to head home," she lies. "Go get changed, dinner will be ready soon," she assures, rising to her feet, ushering them out of the room and up the stairs. 

Upstairs Glory trails Phee into her room. "I told you" she says, closing the door behind them.

Phee throws her bag on the floor. "Told me what? "

"That I don't trust Mr. Crane. he shows up here and everyone's acting strange. That man, who was here after Winnie's husband died? he said he's looking for him." she confesses and Phee's eyes go wide. 

"Mr. Crane?" she repeats in quiet shock. Glory nods. 

"I think he's dangerous. He's done something to Auntie Hope. We have to call him!"

Phee blinks. "How---"

Glory dashes across the hall and returns with a card. "He gave me this."

"I don't know Glory,"

"Mom and dad are acting strange too. He's done something to them. Auntie Hope needs our help." she says with conviction and dials.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Walters had driven out to the house first thing after Winnie had called that morning, had turned the place upside down after discovering she had jumped ship, had considered going straight to pay the Doves a visit until he'd gotten a phone call from little Glory. He's just leaving out the back, preparing to launch a man hunt for Crane and the woman--and he now knows the Doves lied when they claimed there was no one else living with them--- when he thinks he sees a shadow dart around the front. Flashlight in one hand, gun in the other, he doubles back to investigate. 

It's almost nightfall by the time Jenny gets to Cecilia Gordons old house and finds it, too quiet. She thought Crane had mentioned getting directions to a relative from here, well who gave them?

Prowling around the perimeter, Jenny gives up on decency and hunts around for a lock pick, letting herself in. She's tip toeing through the house when the beam of a flashlight sweeps through one of the windows and she ducks for cover.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I detour for a chapter completely about Ichabbie and past life Ichabbie. 
> 
> But you don't mind, do you?
> 
> Crane contemplates Abbie before, and now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crane understands, vaguely, that Abbie has returned, but he doesn't understand the nature of her soul and his, the naming of it etc.
> 
> Each lifetime is exclusive to itself, so only that incarnation from say, their third life, understands certain events. 
> 
> What I'm saying is, for all the lives that follow Heron and Fortune, (the first time in my history that they find each other), they NEVER remember that it was each other that named their souls Abbie and Ichabod. 
> 
> If you have questions get at me in the comments. LOVE YOU GUYS MUAHS. <3

Well, Crane thinks as they get out of the car and find themselves sauntering to the hotel, My first time on Canadian Soil. 

He'd asked one of his contacts, one of the people who had managed to fix up papers and transfer money quickly enough to make this look like a legitimate vacation where a quiet place was, and they'd sent him here.

London Ontario Canada.

He is stiff and rickety and miserable from the drive, having been going at it almost all day. Hope took over for some hours while he slept, but still given the running around the night prior, moving boxes and items with Donovan and Hope's inspired wild streak today---consequently taking him with her---leaves him positively drained. And if that weren't enough, he huffs as they push open their hotel room door and notes the singular double bed. 

And then there's this. 

Hope yawns, still in his coat, staggers toward the bed and throws herself on it. "I can't believe we've done this." she says quietly, marvelling at how far her recklessness has taken her in one unbelievable day. She can't remember what inspired it anymore, in hindsight she sees her irrationality for what it is. Truly, probably all she had needed was some air, a drive around town to set her back to rights. But no. She rolls over, head propped on hand to look at Crane, ignorant of her watching him as he surveys the room. She can see him thinking already that he wants to change accommodations first thing come morning, but there are visible bags under his eyes and she feels guilty. He removes his vest and his boots, placing their bags by the wall before he ventures into the washroom. Moments later he returns, shirt sleeves rolled up, smelling minty, and looking wearily and warily at the bed she is sprawled on. She watches his gaze track to a chair. "Don't do it," she yawns, patting the bed beside her. "Don't bother after what I put you through today, you deserve a good nights rest Crane. Come on." 

It's a testament to how bone tired he is that he doesn't mount much of a protest beyond raising a finger in the air, opening his mouth and then abruptly closing it and collapsing beside her. "Oh what have we done,"he laughs weakly, flopping backwards. 

"A wild, thing." she answers.

"Wild, stupid," he counts on his long fingers. 

"Reckless, irresponsible," she adds helpfully.

"Oh incredibly irresponsible! Unbelievably spur of the moment, insane, I would go on were I not so tired," he groans before he feels Hope's tiny hand reach for his. 

"For all of those things, however. It's been, fun, unexpected, liberating," she folds down each one of his fingers as she calls out these adjectives. "Exciting…..right." she finishes, holding his hand in hers. 

Perhaps it is desperation and his own savagely beating heart that makes him almost entirely neglect his former clinging to propriety but he allows this. Allows her to keep holding his hand on this bed they are sharing. Allows her to disengage long enough to go rummaging through what they purchased and disappear into the washroom, emerging in a oversized t shirt and shorts, pulling his coat back on again and then, lying almost too close to him. "Ichabod," she says when his eyes have been closed a moment, drifting on the edges of slumber. The sound of his name thrums in him though and he winks his eyes open, finds her brown ones staring curiously back at him. "Do you think I'm insane?"

"Why, because you've run away with me? Yes. You're certifiable." 

She pouts at him and he gives her a drowsy smile in return. "Why does this seem so, familiar," she asks wonderingly, brushing a finger at the corner of his mouth. 

"Perhaps we met in another life," he replies vaguely, bracing himself for her to go into a fit of pain at the allusion but it doesn't come. Instead she goes silent, as if to ponder the possibility. 

"Let's say we did. What's our story?"

"You were a warrior and I was…..brought into your rebel camp."

She snickers. "And why would I invite you to join?"

"Oh, oh, I don't know, I….was fleeing a tyrannical leader. I got on his wrong side and decided to help you fight against him."

"And then what,"

"And then we became, very close."

"Like siblings?" she asks, voice going heavy with sleep. 

"No no no, more than that. Deeper than---" he yawns loudly "That"

"How?" her eyelids flutter. 

"A  bond, a powerful connecting thing, like…."

"soul mates," she whispers "Goodnight Ichabod," 

It's only then he realizes, with the words ghosting across his chest exactly how close she has manoeuvred herself while they spoke. Her head tucked under his chin, his arm framing around her. He rubs his thumb along her brow and closes his eyes. Admits yes, that this IS insanity at its finest and that he's done a horrible, strange thing, but---she's here, with him. All  that may follow are worth it to be here right now, given he didn't think he would ever have this, ever. 

"Goodnight….Abbie"

He swears she smiles. 

Waking beside her,  is a different thing entirely. He is groggy and stiff and for a moment entirely disoriented by his surroundings until he remembers where they are. Who is with him. He moves his head imperceptibly to look down at her. Draws back, just a bit, to gaze on her slumbering face. She's so, perfect, he thinks. In this stolen moment Crane has time to contemplate the two versions of the woman he knows. Has been allowed to know, suddenly.

Abbie, Grace Abigail Mills, had never been so, free spirited. No, she had been considerate, almost doting on him at times, protective, governed by order and law but so willing to do for others. Giving. Benevolent. Stalwart and kind.

Hope, on the other hand, Abigail Hope Dove--she's unruly, he'll admit. She, her emotions fire wildly, her inquisitiveness takes hold of her in a way the one before never did. Yet still she is, caring, searching, trusting, by comparison, and...brave, as she had been, before.

Where  Grace---he thinks in his head to keep it straight---had run, would have run still from the supernatural and this duty were it not for his sudden appearance in her life--Hope is charging with it, full steam ahead.

She is full of possibility and she wonders and marvels and revels in the exhilaration of the unknown. Because that is what 'hope' is. Believing and wanting and chasing.

He still doesn't understand how she came back. Or how she fell into the Doves lap like a long lost relative. Only that he would know her anywhere. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What Crane doesn't grasp, is that each life time in which they have known each other, they are possessed of different attributes. Their character has been forged by different experiences, given different gifts. Their souls remain, but where one life time they may adore the other instantly in another they fought considerably before hand. In one life time where she needs a stalwart soldier, another a tender loving man. In one, a floundering chattering book worm, another, some  entirely different attribute. 

Each lifetime, they start _fresh_ , with no knowledge of before. They find one another over and over again, always through new eyes, but with a deep recognition in their heart. And it must be this way, for every incarnation,  they have been paired in ways that complete the other. That's what makes it work. They fill in parts the other lacks. Reinvigorates their existing strengths. 

For each new life one begins, the other must follow. 

Or else they are not a match. 

Or else the demands one makes of them cannot be met by the other. 

That is to be the gift of their bond, of their souls calling to one another.

That in every lifetime they will be fashioned perfectly for the other.

That they will always be on par.

That they must always leave the world together, to morph, to rise, to adjust, to be everything the next leg of their journey requires. With no reflections of how they carried on before, because each foe, each trial, is different.

They cannot rely on the past to guide them in their unpredictable life. They are meant to live wholly in the now and what lies ahead of them. 

But what if one of them, has left the other behind? 

What if one of the pair has evolved and changed, living a life time ahead of the other. 

Then there is an imbalance. 

Then the clear cut paths of their lives are muddled. 

If one needs an equal, as wildly adventurous and curious and inquiring as she, then one hemming and hawing in doubt and fear, laden with the past, is no partner for her, this time around. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Crane knows none of this. 

Only that, he cannot fight the temptation to brush his lips softly against her forehead, pressing gently. His eyes close, absorbing this moment of closeness. 

"Crane?"

Caught. He freezes with his lips there. Paralyzed. 

"Crane?"

She draws back and looks at him  before she stretches up to peck his nose. His eyes widen in shock. She laughs at him, swats his arm and swings herself out of the bed. "Good Morning. So tell me which is it, you were imagining I was Snow White or Sleeping Beauty?" she cajoles as she hunts for clothes and then goes for the shower. 

"N-n-n-neither," he stammers. She thinks he was dreaming. He clears his throat. "Besides which, Hope, the princes of those stories woke their intended with true loves kiss, on the lips." he doesn't know why he bothers to differentiate, he must love being right that much. 

"Well you need to aim better then," and the water starts running. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

The Life of Fortune

The bubbling black mass laughs at him as he dashes and sprints out of range of the snapping mouths chasing him. At one point the tar had surged across the ceiling, dripping on him and it had made him cry out with the acidic sting of it. It burns his flesh and the smell makes him gag. "Eternal night" the Snake taunts. "An Immortal king ruling over you for blackened eternity---that is your fate." 

To torture him further a whole opens in its body and shows him Aniel as if caged in, how his skin dulls and begins to leech away to grey. How Mirta, with her spit fire eyes and strong lethal limbs withers in the dark pit of its body before it shuts up again, swallowing them. Sickened, Heron keeps making his dash across the Throne Room, aiming for the kings Chambers that lie on the other side. T

he Star jostles as he runs, shining but dimly now with so much wickedness surrounding it, as if cowed. 

"Don't go there," The Snake snaps suddenly, lancing a black tendril his way, it twines around his wrist and he cries out in pain, a hundred little fangs dripping poison bite into him, when he slices across the thing the Snake merely laughs and he gapes in horror at his hand, peppered with puncture wounds and swiftly draining of colour. "Stay out of that room!" The Snake commands when he persists and Heron grits his teeth in satisfaction as he throws the doors open wide.

Then staggers back in terror.

No.

He casts his gaze toward the balcony, the moon hanging in the sky, the pooling blackness spilling over from the Snake and unfurling into the sky, stretching greedily across all of the land, cloaking them in darkness.

Down below people scream.

He can hear them their terror is so deafening.

The muck of the Snake surges through the villages and towns and valleys, swallowing the citizens, poisoning them in its grasp. Extinguishing all things that burn bright. On his shoulder the Star dims again and he refuses to contemplate it. 

Not for the least of his reasons being that the Snake has tricked him. He has chased him exactly to where he wants him, for on the other side of the door is the King's new body. Too strong. Too mighty. Horrible and fused together by dark magic. There is a gaping whole in his forehead, and he knows then, as the arms swing to reach for him, that he means to affix the Star there. He just barely dodges out of the way, confused. 

He had expected to find Fortune with the king, as much as he doesn't like to admit it, he had thought she was being detained by guards back here.

But there is nothing but the hissing of the Snakes power and King Ro now, a looming monstrosity, advancing towards him. 

"Where is she" he demands, faltering as he backs away, lands on the ground and has his palm seared. He screams in pain. 

"Did I not tell you," The Snake smiles. "She's dead."

"You lie,"

The bulbous eyes close for a moment and then open.

It takes everything within him not to crash to his knees. "Fortune!" for there she bobs in the Snakes slitted eye. Hand reaching out through tar to grasp at him. 

"Heron!" 

"Let her go!"

"You have something we want, guard." 

"Heron! Don't give it to him!" but her face is ashen. He thinks back to the red flash the Star had given earlier. 

It hadn't been warning him that the Snake lies. It was telling him she was in danger. And the dwindling light since then---he can't look away from how much, less, she seems in there, skin laced with tiny punctures. Draining her. Poisoning her. "Anything." 

"HERON NO"

He meets her gaze, and turns back to Ro, suddenly gone still. It is the first time he notices that the King hasn't spoken. "What is wrong with him," he asks slowly. "All of this might and yet he does not move," he spits. 

All of the Snakes fanged mouths seem to smile. Each a hideous window now containing Mirta, Aniel, Fortune and the others he has absorbed into it. One devilish mouth grins around the form of a baby, turning swiftly blue it is so pale, the brilliance of its life draining away into it. 

"Clever, _bird_ ," it rasps. "You know now who to fear, don't you?"

"He's been your puppet." Heron concludes, dread filling him. "All this time, you've been controlling him, but why? why not kill him and be done with it?"

"My power was contained within my old form, as is. A wretched priest had confined me to it. Thinking that if given human sensibilities I would not still slither on two feet. That I would grow tender towards the Creator and all he has wrought---I abhor it.  I mean to destroy what the Lord has made. To ruin his people, what I began in the garden I shall finish here."

Heron's stomach lurches. 

"Being human only showed me how much the Lord loved his children---and I despise it, and all that was taken from me when I was cast out. I have spent, years, searching for a way to ruin it. Years" he hisses, lunging toward Heron for show. " Yet the form I inhabited confined me. And Ro, wicked, such an easy place for me to plant my dark seeds, I told him how to transform--whispered it to him in his mind so he thought it his own doing. That he would craft a new body, worthy of containing all of my power. An invincible form. And now the time has come, to pour myself into my new vessel, with power I have gathered from the living and the sky. Give king Ro, the Star, Heron" he sneers. "And I will release her."

"Heron," she calls feebly, shaking her head. "No."

"I am too weak for this mission after all," he confesses. Tears stream down Fortune's face. She continues to shake her head. 

"No," she whimpers. "Heron, please, my love, no" 

"I cannot help that I love you more than the world," he says, reaching up for the remaining, small light now, edging away from him, as if it suspects what he's about to do. "Forgive me, Fortune."

"No." she insists, " _Ichabod_ ," reaching through the blackness and cursing when she gets stung by more tiny fangs. Tar curls around her. " _You promised me_ ," 

" _ **Abbie**_ ," he swallows thickly, holding the light aloft. 

The Snake's excitement is palpable, the air hums with its victory. 

Heron begins a cautious approach. "I would fight beside you, and for you." he repeats. Her face crumbles in sorrow. "Die beside you, and for you. Live  with you and for you, and Abbie, yes, I will find you. In the darkest, pitch black night," and he manages to smile through his tears here as he winds back his arm, Star in hand. "For where there is Light such as our Bond, it illuminates and obliterates all shadow." 

And he throws the Star, into the Snakes gleeful, gaping, mouth. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND.....next chapter might be entirely ichabbie and past life. If you have objections to this please say 'I' 
> 
> Also....that Snake!


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this was entirely past life Ichabbie.
> 
> I just felt a need to let this moment, breathe. 
> 
> Hopefully I'll update later this week 
> 
> thanks so much for reading you guys its EVERYTHING.

The Life of Fortune

Fortune blinks, thinking she's crossed  over for how deeply shadowed the place is, before she remembers---she scrambles, turning over on her back "Heron?" she asks, softly, "Mirta? Aniel?" she rises to her feet and groans with the soreness of her wounded limbs, but inhales sharply as they quickly vanish. The Snakes power begins to recede. 

"I will follow you," it vows, weakened, beaten, but Fortune cannot understand how.

As the Snake begins to break down its captives slide free, colour slowly returning to some. Others that remain the ash grey of the dead. "Throughout time and space I will come againsssst you. I will ssssend plaguesss and demonssss, ssssorcerers and godssss, even friendsssss" it snaps maliciously. " Your alliessss, I will set them againsssst you, in the yearssss to come." his uncontrollable hissing raising the hairs on her arms. 

She straightens, still dazed. He had thrown the Star at the Snake yes but---and then she sees it, the only just recently dim light now large and blazing. Brighter than she has ever known it to be. It would never fit back into her socket as is. It drifts to her and she cups it, and as she feels its warm glow, the way it vibrates, it whispers her name. The name of her soul. 

"Oh no," she sinks to her knees with it in hand. 

"I will dessstroyyy you," the Snake burbles before its fangs drop, clattering to the floor and its slitted eyes brighten until they explode. The room is still full of the dark power, the night sky still solid unyielding pitch black. 

"What have you done," she asks the Star. It pulses brighter and she strokes it gently. "Oh how could you do this," 

For Heron had poured the Light of his Soul, his Love, all that within him that shines bright, as a Solider of God, of bravery and love for her and the world, into the Star when he had cast it.

 And it's brilliance had weakened the Snake, reduced it to the lingering smoking stinking dark that clings still to the Throne Room.

 Cradling the Star still she hears the slow heavy steps of King Ro's body. She rises to her feet and draws her sword, keeping hold of the Star in her opposite hand, she considers him.

She had heard what the Snake had said. She believes now, that under the Snakes influence, that Ro has long since been dead, had forfeited his soul. And even if he had not--were he not wicked to begin with, he would not have made such an easy prey. He is my blood she thinks as he advances. I am to call him Kin. But he aligned himself with the evil--so he is my enemy first. 

His body lurches toward her and she strikes in a broad arc. His head. Then each arm. Each leg. And marching now to the torso stabs it, again and again, grunting angrily and face wet with tears as she mourns the love she lost. 

"Fortune?" 

Again, and again, gasping through her sobs with the effort of it. 

"Fortune? Fortune" strong arms wrap around her, wrestling the sword from her hands. "Be still sister be still," Aniel comforts. Wailing she turns in his arms buries her head in his chest. He sways with her weight, still weak, healing from being ensconced in the Snakes power but his wounds are disappearing, the colour returning. Across the room Mirta groans and rises, swearing as she struggles to her feet. 

"What happened," she asks, staggering towards them, glaring warily at the remaining bubbling pools along the floor. "Where is he, what has---" The Star bobs forward, and she swats at it, the glare too much in the stubborn shadows but Fortune reprimands her. 

"No no no," she shoos Mirta out of the way, holding her hands out for the Star to return to her, she holds it close. Mirta regards her incredulously. 

"You don't mean---"

Fortune nods, caressing still the Star that now, as she beholds it, is growing unwieldily in her palms. Growing, expanding and stretching. Too large for her to hold she steps back, all three of them do, giving it room. The survivors of the Snakes attacks shield their eyes on the floor, hobble and limp to the farthest corners. "What now," Mirta asks suspiciously. "What new terror--"

"In the face of victory still so bitter," a voice admonishes and in spite of herself, Mirta smiles. 

"Do not think because you shine that I still would not cut you, stray."

"Heron," Fortune calls, disbelief holding her back from charging at him. He is glowing. Shimmering, dazzling, just as bright as the Star. He IS the light and it IS him. He raises a brow at her, inquiring, for he has transcended that form now and she well knows it. "Ichabod," she corrects herself, fresh tears of joy starting down her cheeks. He holds a hand to her. 

"Abbie,"

Mirta and Aniel exchange glances. They do not understand these names, but they do not question. They dare not take their eyes off of them for they sense this may be the last glimpse of the pair that they will have. 

She takes it, approaching him, bathing in the glow that pours off of him and feels it nestling on her, like a blanket. And she meets his eyes, and the knowledge, the power of the Star--what it Sees floods them. 

 _Now_. Now is the time. Darkness remains. And it will take the Light of Two, to burn it out. 

He lifts her hand to his mouth, kissing her knuckles repeatedly, eyes twinkling and she laughs even knowing what comes next. "My love," he rumbles, kissing her forehead and then her lips, sweet and longing she presses against him, her hands reaching to twine in his hair. 

"My foolish love," she answers. 

"My eternal heart."

"My eternal flame," she counters. 

"I would ask one more thing of you."

"Ask and it shall be given."

"I wish to be joined."

She laughs. Her smile becomes too wide, her eyes too bright, even the dark one, glimmers. "In what further way?" she asks playfully. 

"Will you burn with me," he invites. 

"Forever."

Mirta sputters. "Where do you think you're going sister!" she calls jovially though she cries. The end of this journey is upon them. They all know it. "You are to be Queen. You have people to rule."

She turns over her shoulder to look at her siblings. "It is your crown now, Mirta. Keep them, be the Keeper of our people. Rule them well. And Aniel, protect our sisters Throne."

Aniel salutes and Mirta shakes her head vehemently. "And where do you go now, with that scraggly bird." she teases, tender towards him now, because he has become part of their family. He saved them, and now he and her sister will save the world. As they our meant to do.

"To our destiny," She answers, as he wraps an arm around her and she turns into him, bathing in the glow, letting the light over come her, becoming the light itself. "Do not mourn me," she smiles up at him and him down at her, holding tight. "We will meet again, one day, around the Throne of God. Take care Mirta, Aniel, I love you both. Dearly."

Her companion, her partner and love nods. "Be well." 

They begin to fade, becoming a glowing, burning, too bright orb before it flashes out and with a sound like thunder, burns, scours, and purges all of the darkness and poison, wickedness and evil the Snake had left behind. 

After, all that is left, is a rock. A sparkling thing. Mirta lifts it, wipes stray tears. "This is all I have of our sister. I will keep it in our line, I will pass it down, to remember her." 

When Mirta is crowned Queen, she will wear the Star on a chain around her neck, the only piece of jewelry she will adorn herself with. She leads them well. Aniel marries the sister of the man she will call king. 

And Mirta tells her daughter, when she is old enough, what her sisters final words to her had been, before they became the greatest Light the land had ever known, to dispel the shadows, to heal their land. She still cries to tell it. 

"And do you know, my daughter, what she said to me?" 

The little girl, her princess, shakes her head, curls bouncing gleefully, no. 

" _May Fortune smile upon you"_  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmmm
> 
> He will send plagues, and demons, and sorcerers and gods and friends.... sounds like the Snake's in this fight for the long haul.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So story moves along. Some Ichabbie cuteness.
> 
> Also I make up my own histories and rules. So....yeah. Just forewarning I'm probably gonna start messing with my own logic. but I will do my DAMNDEST to make it make sense because my stories are messy but I try not to let my writing be. 
> 
> Love you guys and all your comments! You make writing this so much fun and so rewarding because it feels like exchanging gifts :) ^.^

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to Becca for names!

Hiding behind the island counter  Jenny watches as the light sweeps around the perimeter of the kitchen. She's hunkered down well enough to avoid being caught but that doesn't soothe her any, especially when she hears the door leading off the kitchen give with a click. Cursing she puts her hand on her gun and waits. Heavy cautious foot steps creaking the floors around her. She moves as silent and quick as she can when she hears the steps vanish down the hall. It's a man, she notes, she wonders if its a thief come to loot. The light makes an abrupt arc back in her direction and she ducks behind her shelter again, but too quick and too noisy and steps quicken. "Damn" she mutters, giving up her hiding spot, springing to her feet and aiming. 

"Drop the gun. FBI." 

She holds firm, she's never been afraid of tangling with the law and she's not about to start now. 

"I said drop it, Mills." 

"Make me," she challenges. 

"If you don't think I've got warrants for you, you've got another thing coming." The kitchen illuminates and Jenny finds the gun knocked from her hand and Walters has her hands behind her back. "Where's Crane," he asks. 

"The hell you think I'm here? On vacation?"

"You knew he was headed here."

"So did you, apparently. But he went off my radar already. Guess he slipped you too." 

"I've got a source that says he's done more than that. He's got a hostage."

Jenny barks a laugh. The image of Crane holding someone hostage. _"Are the accommodations to your liking? How about some tea. You know you haven't been detained properly until you've had my bedforshire clanger"._

"Crane doesn't have the guts or daring something like that. My sister would be alive if he did." to her surprise, she feels Walters slacken his grip. She pulls her hands free, shaking out her wrists, back still turned to him. 

"You know I never met your sister. Heard she was one hell of an Agent."

"You'd have been honoured to know her." Jenny answers, eyes welling but tears that won't fall. She wailed for Joe, still keens for him. She can cry for him and be miserable and feel mildly better afterwards. For Abbie she aches. She skirts around hole in her life that can't and won't ever be filled. Much as she doesn't like to admit, if she put her mind to it, the way Joe would have told her to--she could fall in love again. For Abbie---short of going back in time---an idea they had visited and had been frustrated to find neither of them had the gift for incantations she had---there was no returning her sister. Whatever part of her that had ever been hers, with all of these recent, developments. 

"I would have been." Walters agrees and at last Jenny turns to face him, sizing him up. If he chooses to be difficult she can take him down gun or no. "Listen Mills, the society needs the Witnesses. We have resources and plans in place to help them and they can help us. We can work together--as George Washington had intended of Crane--to rid the world of evil, mortal and supernatural. Hand in hand. But we need both Witnesses to do it, and…..I feel, Crane's been holding out on us. If we find the next Witness it can make all the difference in the world to have us all on the same side. Eradicate evil, stave off the apocalypse, _and_ , create a safe, crime free paradise here. But we need him to tap into…whatever it is that connects them, to lead us, once we're all together, there's a mission to work toward that will give us the power to accomplish incredible things."

"He lost the woman he loved" Jenny's gaze slides away from his. "Even something as simple as that he couldn't manage to say. That's why this idea of yours? That he's run off with someone against their will? is ridiculous."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Tea?" Crane inquires. 

Holding her cup aloft she smiles. "Yes, thank you." he pours and she reclines carefully on the bed, mind wandering to when she had been imaging his fingers around a cup of tea, almost two days prior. The uncanniness of it makes her chuckle inwardly. He can tell somethings amused her but he doesn't dare ask what, not when they are so simple like this. 

His first thought when he got out of the shower, and Hope was there, in a grey tank under a long sleeved plaid shirt dress, leggings and flats---she had just looked like she was _begging_ to be cuddled dressed like that--something so remarkably, comfy and free about her. Not quite like Abbie in her yoga pants. Not quite like how she was back at the Doves in her dresses and skirts.

Just this, in between place.

His first thought had been, when he'd seen she'd been down to the lobby and brought breakfast and was waiting expectantly on the bed for him with it was---My God am I being _rewarded_ for absconding with this woman? for my treachery to duty?  

"Croissant? it's chocolate drizzled." she'd offered. Without thinking he'd plunked down on the bed and had leaned in for a bite of it still in her hand and was almost three bites in before he realized he'd forgotten to put on his shirt. His look of scandalized shock had puzzled her. She doesn't know what era you come from, he'd chastised himself. She doesn't know what a precious old fuss pot you have been. That before you would have never dared be caught in such a state. 

He feels he is forgetting himself, truth be told. Some part of himself, the Crane that he knows---knew, is falling by the wayside. He doesn't know what that entails. If he should be afraid. They are sharing a hotel room having breakfast, that seems to be all that matters. 

"So," Hope asks, twirling her feet absently in the air. "What're we going to do today?"

"Hmm?" distracted from his reverie. "Do?"

"I didn't skip town, hop borders to be cooped up somewhere else," she scolds with humour. "We're free here. I wanna do things, see things."

His eyes light up. "This is a university town, we could visit the library---" she rolls her eyes. You and your libraries she begins to think before a dull ache starts. She winces. "Hope?" he leans in, peering at her. "Is your head bothering you?"

"I'm fine,"

He stares her down before cupping the back of her head, as if feeling for an injury. He leans back. "Are you sure?" he asks seriously. 

No. "Yes. Come on." she grabs a hat from the bag where they shopped yesterday, squashing it down on his head. It covers his short hair. He's never considered himself a hat person but decides he does look rather, "Fetching," Hope supplies smugly as he examines himself in the mirror. "The word you're looking for, imaginary husband, is 'fetching'." 

"Are we still playing that game?" he queries. 

"It'll be our story for the locals. Daring newlyweds on an escapade honeymoon," she snickers. 

"You've quite the imagination," he sniffs, though direly pleased with the idea. He straightens the collar on the plaid shirt he's wearing with the new grey slacks and oh---well. He thinks, smirking at her. If we're going to wear matching outfits I suppose it's the only logical explanation. "Ready to go then?"

"Hold on," she reaches up to dust sugar off his beard, completely nonchalant. "Alright. Let's go." 

Crane catches at her hand as they leave.

She doesn't pull away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Come on girls you're going to be late," Faye hollers, rounding up her daughters and bundling them out the house. Phee and Glory are keen, if not disorganized about leaving. 

Of all things, shortly after Glory had called Walters---they'd begun to fret that perhaps they should have spoken to their parents first. His kind, enthusiastic, thank you for the information, and his prodding of who exactly had vanished with Crane had left Glory feeling decidedly queasy.

Glory is a girl of great conviction, fierce defensive mechanisms. And she's a bright girl. Strong, loving, protective sister. She'd taken her duty to Phee very seriously before Phee's sight returned. She'd scared off bullies and stood up for her.

They use to run declaring how fearsome she was when in a rage. Their necks would feel hot when she fixed them with her no nonsense glare. The air would feel charged with her righteous anger---how dare they threaten herself or Phee? 

 Glory was the scrapper of the two, if anyone asked. Phee the mild mannered one. But Glory is still a child, who hasn't quite grown into herself yet. Her power, her strength is still easily misguided, and her distrust easily incensed when it comes to her family. 

She's a defender. A warrior, in her own  way. 

So yes she is brash and prepared to pick battles she's too small for to protect hers. Especially given strange Mr. Crane has run off with their Aunt. 

But that doesn't mean she thinks her parents are going to be particularly impressed with her about it. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny sits like a brooding storm cloud in the corner, nestled among piles of precariously leaning books while Ezra rummages for just the right one---of course there's just the right one in  a place like this it's like a mystical treasure trove of knowledge that he wants no part of whatsoever. 

"The nine sacred sites, which is what he's listed there, each contain, well,it's hard to explain. A….piece, of a puzzle, if you will. And when put together…."

"They unleash a terrible power."

"A monster trying to destroy the world," Danny intones, voice laced with boredom. 

Ezra glares. "A Divine, power. Actually. One that hasn't been tested. There is no record of this ever being used, in history. It's too great and dire a thing to be conjured all willy nilly."

"Never been used? How do we even know it's dangerous?"

"We don't, but we do know that it's a bad idea to go toying around with mystical totems, don't we?" 

Sophie nods. "In my experience it's best to leave those alone. Crane nearly got us choked to death by a demon when he used that damn orpheus vase, thing." 

Both men give her quizzical stares. She shakes her head. "Bottom line. We don't think Walter's wants them to just sit and be pretty on a shelf. Right?"

"Right. Any luck getting Jenny?"

"None." 

"We have two choices. We go on a road trip to find her and Crane, or we see how many of these we can scour on our own."

"If Walters is playing crooked Agent he might already have a lead on Jenny, or he'll be on the watch for Crane. He thinks we're doing the job, no questions asked. Let's keep it that way."

"What are you saying Danny?" Sophie asks, a brow raised, but the look in her eyes says she thinks she knows where he's headed. 

"Find the---whatever those are there. Keep them safe. Let Walters show his hand and find out what's really going on here."

"What about Jenny, Crane,"

"We've all met Jennifer Mills. She can handle herself. And Crane, he's many things but he's not reckless, he's not an idiot. Let's 'do the job' Walters gave us. If we can beat him to it, that puts the ball in our court."

Ezra bites his lips together. He doesn't love the idea. He doesn't love the piecemeal logic of it---but it seems a bad idea for everyone to go on a linear chase when there's no clear leads and every time one of them ventures forth that communication lines vanish. Especially knowing Walters is on a hunt. 

"Alright. Okay. Pick one then Mr. Reynolds." 

Danny screws up his mouth. "Okay, This one."

Sophie rolls her eyes and laughs without humour. "Because this one doesn't sound ambitious at all."

"What, that's gotta mean whatever it is, it's already dead, right?"

Ezra grumps. "What are we going after Foster."

"The Ashes of Beasts." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Life of Triumph.

"You move too slow!"

"Must you affront me at every turn!"

"With limbs as long as yours and still you lag behind me."

"We are not all born for bounding and leaping like little energetic sparks." he retorts hotly. 

"Would you get up here and stay low?" she hisses as they hide behind an outcropping of rock. 

She is the Queen in this life that she wasn't before, although an unconventional one. The people revere and respect her, if not fear in equal measure. Her appearance is foreign here, and they whisper she carries with her forbidden things. But it is her gift, and his as well, that excuses them and lifts them high above reproach. She catches his eye just as a shadow casts itself over them. "Ready?" she mouths. 

Falcon gives a perfunctory nod, setting his jaw. 

The air splits with a shriek.

They spring out from their hiding place. 

In this life, they are Falcon and Triumph, and they are Slayers. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should we be suspicious Danny is now volunteering to look for these magic items? 
> 
> Also, introducing another past life Ichabbie pair, Falcon and Triumph! 
> 
> (Don't worry more Crane and Hope coming)


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long!
> 
> As usual I make up my own mythologies and laying a little groundwork. 
> 
> Love you guys! 
> 
> And uh, in the beginning Falcon and Triumph did get along, but you know, imps be imps.

"Donovan?" Faye calls, searching the house. "Donovan?" finding house empty, she goes back to the workshop. He glances in her direction, just barely peeling his gaze away from the Star. "What are you doing?"

"Been asking it things." he says. "There's something here, about that Angeli Choru," and he rises to point to a recently added part of the mural. He catches her inquiring gaze. "It helps me, visualize with it, without the storm. She mentioned, a song. Power, anyway, I think, if we can put this song together, then we can repair Hope's soul. Preferably, without hurting myself in the process." he cracks a smile at her but Faye lingers at the door. Her head is buzzing. 

"Do you have, your ipod or something---"

"Oh. No. I….sorry but I brought this out here." He walks over to a bench and hefts the hymn book Mother Cece had left. 

"Is it…."

"Yeah. It is, I could have sworn the first night when I brought it you would have  heard it. I think it's probably…special somehow too. Who knows."

Blinking rapidly Faye steadies herself on the wall. "Can you leave those out here a moment." she rasps. "We need to figure out how to find Hope and Crane."

"Well I'm ahead of you there."

"The Star showed you," she concludes.

"London Ontario, Canada"

"That's, fantastic." she deadpans.

"I know, I know, but at least, we know where they are. And we can go get them."

"No. You can go, Donovan. I've got to stay at home here with my girls. And don't even think of making this a family affair. This is enough upheaval even for me and I haven't even done anything. You can go, find the other parts of the song, whatever, and bring them back home. I'm---I'm staying here." 

"Faye."

She turns back at the door.

"I love you. Just wanted to remind you of that."

She smiles. "I love you, Donny Dove." 

And then her back itches.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Life of Triumph

"If you were any taller it would have had your head," she teases around a mouthful and Falcon shoots her a reprimanding glare. 

"If you were any shorter it would have landed on you and thought you a toad stool to perch." He leans slightly to the side as grains of rice go hurtling past his ear. He smirks. He learned, very early on when she first came here, how sensitive she was of her height--and when he'd heard her name! Oh the opportunity for this playful ribbing, how could he pass it up? 

"One so small named Triumph?"  he had chortled softly, to which she had responded, coolly. 

"A small axe is an axe all the same and fells any tree, great or small," she'd tripped him in the midst of their walk---one of many over the years to come---to illustrate her point. 

They reside at the Temple, now. The authority on  all manner of spiritual unrest and any wicked creature that rises out of the mire to come against the people. They were of two different camps, once. Two separate temples, separate spiritual leaders, two variations on a theme. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A curious thing, for in their youth they had been trained and taught together. They memorized the same scriptures and practiced the same characters when writing prayers. They learned different scents to burn for each spiritual matter. For changing of season. For the possessed. Prayers for fertility and good crops and health, whatever ailment the people would approach with. They were taught to fight. They had sparred often when they were young, him tall and strange, she pretty and dark. And whilst the people would grow to revere and respect them, the fear would come in equal measure, especially when they had begun to quarrel.

A slight thing. A blight on their honour, perpetrated by a mischievous imp, sent forth from ancient enemies, to try in this life time to drive a wedge. It had taken the form of a man and appeared to Triumph, and had whispered ill thoughts and challenges of her ability " _He calls himself better suited,_ " the imp had cackled. " _Better to guide them._ "

He had gone to Falcon, as a small child. " _I heard her say that she could easily conquer any evil alone. She has no use for you!_ " 

And these minuscule poisonous words hardened a corner of their heart. 

When they met for studies, drawing up their robes so as not to touch the other, waiting a full five minutes after one had touched the pot at tea--so their fingers would not for a moment linger in the heat of the other. Their canes and rods clashing and clattering more vigorously during practice. Their hushed murmured voices raising to drown out the other while they prayed---their growing ire had conjured many confused, disoriented spirits, called forth from the realm of the dead purely because the clamour of these two acolytes had roused them. They began to chafe around the other, they argued about ways in which to defeat the undead, to rest spirits, to tame those other creatures, birds made of starlight and reptiles so great that glide through the sky. Their teacher, wizened, bent woman, with pinched features and narrow dark eyes had scolded them saying. "Where two fires rage there is only wildness. You must be matches, dark to the light, completing, not competing,"

But their hearts were hardened again, and Falcon took his tools in the middle of a winter night and sojourned to the most eastern corner of the land, as far as he could manage from her, and he had found a temple, and followers. And he lead them in prayer. He was the Slayer and Monk of the East, and she, of the West. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

September 2016

"You got literature on this too? Danny drawls, watching as Ezra combs through books. 

"Not much but enough. Here." the book flops open to  a page of a pyre, the ashes being gathered into a highly decorated urn, and what he assumes is meant to be a spirit, soaring onward. 

"A cremation." Sophie says. 

"It's not a new practice. Burning your dead and diseased was the only way to prevent it from spreading."

"So we're looking for the ashes of a dead creature." 

Ezra shrugs. "That's my best bet."

"And any creature will do?"

Ezra works his mouth. "That would have been in his files." 

Danny raises a brow. "Whose?"

"August Corbin. He knew about the sacred sites, had catalogued information on them---"

Sophie's face splits into a cheshire grin. "They're in here" she says, with barely contained glee. "Walters gave us the mission right?" she rifles through the file. "We hadn't even got as far as these," she laughs as she pulls out sheets. 

"We started reading all the strange names and Foster was dragging me here before I could blink." Danny cuts in but rises out of his seat to read over her shoulder with Ezra on the other side. 

"I wonder. What are the odds Walters made a copy of these?" 

Huffing Ezra scrubs his face. "Very high. And if that's true, finding these artifacts--we're in a race."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Faye is mulling over her decision to stay home, thinking now that perhaps they ought to pack up and go with Donovan---packing a bag down the hall--when there's a knock on the door. 

"Coming," she calls, braids swishing behind her. 

A badge flashes in her face first thing. "Faye Dove," Walters greets. "Good to see you again. Thank you for inviting us--" and begins backing her through the door. 

"Mr. Walters?" she queries before a woman appears behind her. She's got long hair and carefully arched brows. Suspicious darting eyes. "Donovan?" she calls over her shoulder. 

He comes thundering down the steps then with a bag and Walters looks him over. "You going somewhere Dove?"

"Fishing trip," he answers smoothly, "Going for the weekend, how can I help you?"

"Cut the crap Dove, where's Crane?"

" _Crane_ , Crane who? We don't know anyone, do we Faye?"

"Not a soul," she laughs shakily. "What kind of name,"

"Your daughter called me." Walters smiles as the colour drains from Fayes face. "Said a strange fellow turned up here. Took her aunt."

" _Aunt_?" his companion splutters. Faye takes a deep breath.

"And who's she?"

"Her? oh, she's family. Donovan Dove, your cousin Jennifer Mills."

Jenny's heart jack rabbits. Years of being alone, of not knowing anyone outside of their contained bubble, and here it is, concrete living proof that there are more of them, more family  lines, more ties and history she hasn't plumbed. "Ezra's my father," is all she can manage. 

"Reunions later," Walters snaps. "Mr. Ichabod Crane is under FBI surveillance and we were informed he was seen, here"

Rage over takes Faye. "You had no business anywhere near her my daughter." She spits. "She's a child. They don't understand things like this,"

"You mean they don't understand the finessed art of lying as such as you and your husband have mastered, Mrs. Dove." he leers, eyes sweeping over her from top to bottom. 

"We didn't lie to you, you asked if we knew anything about the death of Winnie's husband who lived here--"

"And even on that you lied, _easily as a song from a golden throat_ , Faye Dove." 

She feels a twinge, somewhere between her shoulder blades. Walters studies her face as he continues. "You claimed it was just the four of you here,"

"My two daughters, Donovan and I," she replies through gritted teeth, feeling the tide of her stomach beginning to turn. This man revolts her. 

"Lies," 

Jenny glares at him. "Look we're after Crane---"

"We're _after_ , Jennifer Mills, Crane and who ever he's run off with, she's a crucial part of this puzzle."

"I keep telling you Crane isn't going to kidnap a complete stranger--"

"Except they're not, strangers, are they Donovan, Faye?"

"Are you saying---"

"Crane's run off with the next Witness didn't even bother to tell you."

"Yes and no," Donovan speaks at last. 

"What do you mean, yes, and no."

And from his pocket, Donovan withdraws the pendant. Glittering and sparkling in  its all knowing splendour. "Show them the split." he commands softly. 

In Faye's ears the humming grows stronger and she retreats without explanation, down the hall at a full run, collapsing at the back door until her mind settles. 

Walters only half watches the spectacle of the Star, Jenny frozen beside him as she looks on. He's rather, intrigued by Faye's disappearance.

He gives a slow smile. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of this past life will look back on what brought Falcon and Triumph together and stopped their prideful feuding. Stay tuned!


	22. Chapter 22

No.

Jenny thinks as the images unfurl. That's _her_. Water brims in her eyes but she wills herself to stay upright. She watches Abbies/Hopes body surfacing to the water and --My God that's Abbie. She feels faint. Longing, grief and longing hit her like a wave and Jenny reaches to touch the light but Donovan snatches it quickly back from them both. "How, that's Abbie, What is that thing."

"The Star of Fortune." Walters answers smugly. "Well that's one down. And according to what you've shown us, it's a good thing.  If we gather all nine---"

Donovan frowns. In hindsight, he had been hasty to show this mystical totem to them; but perhaps an eagerness to have aid in this quest had made him over excited. After all, hadn't Walter hit it right on the head when he'd said the word 'Witness'? Surely that's not common knowledge, he had thought, surely if he knows that much he's already in the loop of this, and there's Hope's---Abbie's?---Sister, his cousin, whom Crane had mentioned before. The Star had even shown her involvement in his mural. 

But Walters first came to them investigating a murder--his diverted interest into Crane, Hope, for that matter, and the fact that he approached Glory, as brave as she is bull headed as she is fierce, he considers, a mite too late, that he has erred in sharing this with them. 

"The what." Jenny asks. 

"The Star," Walters holds his hand out for it and Donovan backs away. The man raises a brow. 

"Family heirloom." Donovan explains. "It stays with me."

"Surely Jennifer here is allowed to hold it?"

"No. She's not." he retorts. "Left to me, and me alone." 

Jenny's fists clench, she is not accustomed to being outside of the loop. She is the gatherer of intel, the hunter of the rare and the strange, she's supposed to keep the secrets not the other way around. It makes her feel powerless, out of her element, like a pawn. 

Because without the full picture Jenny can't quite figure out who to trust and how far at this moment. She takes in the man she's supposed to call cousin, tries to absorb the idea that they have children, younger cousins still. That he has a wife--and what's her story? Her origins? She wants to distrust them all right now, she would go it alone if she could. 

"What does it do"

"Sees things" He says slowly, pocketing it and stepping further away. 

She grits her teeth. "Such, as"

She instantly dislikes the attitude Donovan is taking towards her, as if she's the one to be wary of when they have FBI Walters in their midst and apparently he's managed to misplace not one, but two people. 

"Things," he hisses, now wanting desperately to renege on sharing with them at all. She opens her mouth to launch a full assault, the threats and slick talk, a good snide remark too, all things within her arsenal before Walters puts a hand on her shoulder and then Donovan's. My cousin, she struggles to accept. 

"There's no time for bickering. There's a serious problem here. A Witness with a split soul, well, what good are they? We're down half of the Divine Duo. We need, to find them, and put our new Witness back together." 

"Obviously," Donovan grunts, now growing a little concerned that Faye hasn't returned yet. "Once that's sorted her and Crane can go on their merry way."

"Her being divided like this is dangerous." Walters says. "She's not intact. If harm comes to her as is, she could die and stay that way."

"Exactly when did you get so well versed in this?" Jenny queries, and it's a small thing, the slightest pivot, but she turns on her heel to face Walters, now standing shoulder to shoulder with Donovan Dove. An unwitting united front. 

"You would be amazed at how much research has been done over the years--"

"And you've just been accumulating all of it"

"In our business Mills, surely you can't fault a man wanting all the information he can gather."

"Say she did." Donovan starts and Jenny feels instantly betrayed for even her briefest show of solidarity. "Say, she did die, what becomes of Crane."

"They aren't meant to exist without the other."

"It's not their fate." Jenny supplies, brain working. "Just, an inquiry. If that's Abbie, come back as?" she turns to her cousin.

"Hope."

"They're supposed to have lived, multiple lives, if Hope has…outpaced him….."

"I don't like where your head is at," Donovan says warily. 

"When she is complete….will they still be a match?" 

"I don't even want to think about what kind of madness you're trying to suggest on top of everything else."

Walters taps his chin thoughtfully. "What, that we'll also need to shove Crane forward a lifetime?" 

~~~~~~~~~~

She is beyond him. In every imaginable way. She laughs louder and quicker her curiosity is not just knowledge driven but sheer unbridled playfulness. And her openness, her willingness to take up his and again if he drops it. To lean into him, laughing as they stroll along the street with their beverages. It is early in the school year here and the streets bustle with people to work, to class. The buses are crowded, they'd spent a ten minute ride jam packed against each other on a bus from downtown up to the mall. With no direction whatsoever they perused and meandered and inevitably wound up in a book shop, and then sweets of some sort, and she doesn't care at all to reach over, feeding him. They bus back downtown and poke their heads in the merchants doors, looking at their beaded necklaces or interior decor pieces and she jokes.

"Maybe we should get jobs, buy a place. Buy that throw for the couch," It takes an insurmountable amount of restraint not to attempt reminding her of the home they once shared, with plants he had bought while she'd been trapped in a timeless realm--and she'd have never liked something so brightly hued. 

But she does. Hope is vibrant and varying shades and Crane finds himself, disappointingly, almost wearied by her exuberance. He is used to his calm and steady leftenant, controlled, contained, but heart felt and warm. 

This other side of her is wide eyes and so….carefree, and on top of which seems happy to let herself be close to him on levels that threaten his sanity. She'd slung his arm around her shoulder and one of hers around his waist, hugging him to her as they'd left a shop selling hand carved things. One had been a pair of clasped hands. "For Faye," she'd said. "We, had a falling out, before we left." 

She'd been enjoying their game a lot too. "Dear, could you pass me a napkin?" "Honey squish over--" said on the return bus trip downtown. "Crane, love, let's go in there"

"You're entirely too invested in this," he mused. Her eyes twinkled at him, she squeezed his hand. 

"I can't remember the last time I was silly, frivolous, this unconfined. let me have it," 

"So this is all just to entertain you? My ego shan't survive the insult."

"Oh I'd doubt anything can hurt that big head of yours."

~~~~~~~~~

"Crane." they are back at the hotel, and she has already showered and slipped into sleep things, his coat now becoming part of nighttime garb, and he emerges, towelling his short hair, still very self conscious about being shirtless around her. 

He's tried not to let on but he's been experiencing a sort of discomfort. An internal juxtaposition, if you will. Some struggle to be as unbound and willy as Hope, and another that clings very stubbornly to prim and proper Crane. It feels like heartburn. 

"Hmm?"

"Thank you. For doing this, barely knowing me."

He bites his tongue so hard he thinks he might have bitten it off. "It's been a…pleasurable escapade."

She laughs lightly and reclines on the bed. The rapid intimacy that has sprung up between them terrifies him too. Is this simply what she is like this lifetime? or does some primal part of her call out to him, their bond, even in their strange circumstance. He wants answers and yet none. He feels unfair, knowing what they have been, wanting more, and somehow feeling he might be unwittingly coercing her into this. That he has an unfair advantage. Though truth be told he wants to kiss her and never stop.

And that's unfair too--because he fell for Abbie, and never made good on it, is he betraying, some, aspect, some memory of her, if so quickly he's willing to indulge in physical affection with her reincarnation? War wages within him. Yes and No. 

"Yeah well I've been a lot of trouble to you."

"I'd do it again." he says, voice soft. He hesitates, " _Abbie_ ,"

"Wow it feels like the air changed in here." she rolls over on her stomach, propping her chin on her hands. "Ichabod," his breath catches. 

"When we left….at first, you, you wanted, answers."

"I did. I've gotten sidetracked haven't I"

"Overwhelmingly so."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"Well, allow me to feel as if I'm being even a bit useful to you, ask me something. Anything, I will answer as truthfully as I can."

"I'm afraid to ask some of the things I'm thinking, to be honest."

He sits down on the bed, tossing the towel in the corner, searches quickly for his night shirt which she hands to him, he slings his hands through it and is disconcerted, distracted, flummoxed and all manner of stolen breath when she reaches toward him to fasten the buttons, quick nimble fingers fitting button through loop. "Why?" he asks, his voice about a fifth higher than it's usual cadence. There's a flush creeping up his neck that she finds adorable. 

"If I ask what I'm thinking, and if you confirm it, it'll prove one of two things."

"Go, go on," he rasps as she leans away from him and opts to take his hands in hers. She's so touchy this way! he exclaims mentally. Abbie was never wont for this level of physicality, it disorients him completely. It's welcome, so very much so, but it's still so immediate, so strong. He can feel his heart thrashing.

"Either that I'm crazy. Or you are."

"And if I'm proven a madman?"

"Somehow I still think I would stay"

I did once before---the thought sneaks in, a faint whisper tickling her brain, a small, little pain. She manages not to react to it. 

"Please, whatever weighs on your mind, I'll not judge you."

"Just, yes or no, and I won't press."

"Ready."

"Have we met before."

He swallows, braces himself to comfort her should this set off a headache. "Yes."

Nothing.

"Did….did you know me, before you came to visit Donovan?"

"I was never really looking for Donovan, Hope I was looking for--" he stops himself, eyes catching hers through strands of hair hanging in his eyes.

She struggles to breathe normally. "For?"

Say Mother Cece, Ichabod, that's what lead you there---but that venture, even that has only ever been driven by needing to find her, his only motivation. Had Cecilia Gordon been alive the first thing he would be wanting was a way to find her. 

She's the end game, though he doesn't know it. 

Saving the world, God's Divine Purpose, that's all part of it too.

But for years, millennia, the goal is always to find her. The journey starts and ends with her. She is his reason for being. In any lifetime. He will always look for her when separated. 

He will _find her_. 

But for now his truth is less complicated. 

" _You_ ," he breathes. "I was looking for you."

She waits for pain, the violent feeling of her skull being shattered. Of pounding on a door. Still no ache, no hurt. She licks her lips. "Why."

"We got separated."

Laughter, shaky, disbelieving laughter. She's on the cusp of something and she's at a fork in the road. Her mind needles at her, pointing to go left when part of her wishes to veer hard to the right. This road is where madness lies, it promises her. Madness and inexplicable pain that you won't be able to repair. It can destroy you. 

But only if he gives the wrong answer. Only if Crane forgets to tread carefully and divulges too much. I came for answers she thinks stubbornly, daringly. 

"What on a hike? You should've given me a compass."

"No, not a hike."

"Then how,"

"I _lost you_ ," a tremor in his voice. A deep pain, he blinks his eyes hard and turns away from her gaze. "I lost you and it should never have happened, I should never have let you--" _sacrifice_ , again. Go alone. Leave me. World be damned, I shouldn't have let you save it. "I shouldn't have let you _go_ ," 

There it is, her brain chimes, feeling a small nail tapping in the back of her skull. Go on and tempt this fate. But she can't stop. 

"Why did you?"

"Because I was a coward." he rasps. "I horrid coward. I wasn't what you needed--- damn you," he swipes at tears in his eyes. "I should have known your queries would not be polite, surface things" 

She tilts her head to the side, considering him. Doing a quick mental check in. You've known this man, at maximum, three days, of what you can remember. The things he says should terrify her. But she is not afraid. "Should I forgive you?"

"I don't dare hope you would."

"…..Are you what I need, now?"

"To be honest I don't know that I will ever be everything you need."

Though he was, once. In lifetimes before, they have always been a perfect fit, but an interruption of their last life stunted them, and her progress to this new life gives her new needs, new desires, new strengths to harness and grow. 

"There's a way around that,"

He chuckles darkly. "I would be glad to hear it."

"Challenge yourself," she commands him, voice quiet but firm. "Let yourself---"

Reservations gone to hell. Crane is a weak man, at the end of the day. His heart when it comes to her will always speak louder. He knows that now he shouldn't argue with it. He did so before and had brought them unending misery and misunderstanding. He listens to it now and he'll contend with the fall out after but the reckless part of him wins now, callously knocks his common sense to the side. 

His hand twines in her hair and his lips touch hers. 

At last.

At last.

Traitor some part of who he was, Crane, berates him. You are betraying the memory of Grace Abigail Mills--but the other half of him exults in the rightness of it. You are more than Ichabod Crane. 

She kisses him back. Surprised at first but something, clicks, locks, slides into place. New and familiar all at once. It calls to her. The threatening headache subsides, soothed it would seem by his gentle kisses, the way he deepens the kiss with abandon, how her body relaxes, pulling him down with her on the bed, holding him close.

Madness. 

Sheer and utter, complete, insanity.

She is kissing a stranger.

Not so strange now, is he? and she smiles against his lips, breaking apart for air. "Crane," she pants. He shakes his head. "No?" she laughs. "That isn't your name anymore?"

In the moment in which he gave in to this, the man of his past, who he was, has ceased. 

It is unheard of, to start a new life while still living, in all their years they have never done it, but the love that demanded to be expressed cast off its past iteration, into a corner. Crane has died. He no longer exists. It is not him, anymore. 

Crane was a man who withheld, and that is not who Hope needs. Her partner must be wild and giving and challenging as she is. Crane was not her match. But Ichabod is.

Their souls will always be fashioned and crafted for the other. "Call me Ichabod,"

She drags her thumbs across his cheeks, hovering so close above her, "Ichabod," she breathes. "Ichabod," all she wants is to taste his lips again.

"Abbie"

Age old and centuries deep the ragged edge of her soul that she keeps answers. 

"This is very fast."

"It is." he admits before he closes the scant gap, her body flushes with heat, his fingers graze her sides, he breaks apart to kiss her cheek, down to jawline to throat. 

"Have we, have we ever done this?"

Countless countless times, of which neither holds any recollection. 

"No. But I have longed to."

"I might still call you Crane," she warns breathlessly. "It'll take a while getting used to--yes" she sighs as his teeth graze against her skin. 

"I don't think it matters, really, at the end of the day what we call one another,"

She runs her fingers through his hair as his ministrations slow. She is out of breath and too warm and he is all around her. "Slowly."he murmurs, rolling to the side, wrapping his long arms around her body and pulling her close, flush against him. "For now." he hums, kissing her hair. She knots her fingers with his.

"What's come over you?" she asks, giggling lightly as she tries to get her heart to calm down. 

"You." he answers and means it. "I'm a new man, with you." 

And it's true. Ichabod has just forced himself through to his next lifetime;

For her. 


	23. Chapter 23

They wake to rain. Great thrashing torrents of it, lightening flashing outside the window. When Hope wakes up, she is folded in Ichabod's arms but he is not asleep. He's been awake heaven only knows how long, startled awake by the first boom of thunder. 

Unusual circumstance of shedding his past self while still breathing leaves him still with a unique and odd set of memories and knowledge from before. His soul, stubborn and hardy has cast off boundaries and stifling rules, but his body is the same. His body still carries some histories that now are incongruent with the man he understands himself to be. 

Within himself, his soul chafes against its old coil--knowing it needs to burn this vessel to rise and start fresh. Then he will be new, complete, prepared fully for the next stage.

But for now, he revels in the innocence of waking, changed. 

"Ichabod?"

"I'm here," he rumbles and she feels it through her back, his arms tighten around her. "I'll don't dare leave."

"No?" she asks, gently teasing.

"On more occasions than I like to recall, in a mere blink, you vanish. I've no wish to repeat it. Ever."

"You know it's not too late for you to start scaring me." she whispers, but rolls over towards him, meeting his eyes. "The way you talk---"

"I know" he says, mouth curling into a gentle smile, eyes so crystal clear earnest blue. A knowing gaze. 

"Who _are_ you Ichabod, really" her eyes dart. 

Wary of the pain it might cause he reaches to cup the back of her head, bends his head to whisper in her ear. "It will hurt you if I tell."

"Icha--"

" _Abbie_ ," his gaze softens. 

"You know I didn't care for the name much before you started using it."

He smiles. "I cannot bring you harm. Please."

"Don't hold back from me," she pleads, pulling away, wrapping her fingers around his wrist. "Don't get this close only to hold back from me, I need---I need to be on the level you are, understand what you don't, how we met, what did we do, before…." she trails off, scrunching her nose. "Before, you lost, me?"  she blinks. 

"Your headaches---"

"They'll finally be worth something if you'll tell me." 

A sudden roar jolts them both and her hands fist in his night shirt. She clings to him in a way she never would have dared before. She is headstrong adventurous and light, but vulnerable too. It is a strange sort of relief to feel her clutch at him. "If you won't tell me, then I'll tell you," 

He chuckles softly. "Pardon?"

"The day I…..when they found me in the lake. I woke up in it. In this great long dress, and Donovan was on the bank, and Glory screaming and Phee rocking back and forth. I don't know how I got there. Who put me there?"

The mural flashes across his mind. 

"Donovan didn't recognize me, when he came to. He was out for a month when I turned up. Faith had never heard of me until then---and I love them, I do, and I know they love me but, it doesn't….look I just wish there was at least one person in the world right now that I could understand my connection to. I thought I could understand this, whatever this is, how we went from showing up on my brothers doorstep to this road trip---I got so trusting in you to suggest you take me away--I want---I need this to be real. Something I can trace. That I can back up. That I can _prove_. Tell me there's more to this than we've both lost a grip of reality."

"Our reality is not such a great comfort," he whispers, his heart breaking at her words. "It's a thing I would deliver us both of, were it up to me."

"But it's not?"

"It's not."

"What is, this horrible thing?"

Pressing his lips to her forehead he holds her almost too tight. He takes a deep shuddering breath and prays that this is something she'll recover from. Cruel, he thinks briefly, to even toe this line, to utter the words that come next. He squeezes his eyes shut and tears fall, fresh with the hurt, the pain, of the first time when the goddess had laughed, when the box exploded, when he kissed her hand on the porch before she was gone. When he touched the headstone on her grave before Walters arrived. The first true, permanent divide they had known as Grace Abigail Mills and Ichabod Crane. The longest separation, the longest either had ever been left to mourn when the other perished. 

"Abbie Mills: She bore Witness" 

She stops breathing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Donovan staggers, clutching his chest, gasping for breath. Jenny catches him as he crashes into the wall, easing him down to the floor. "Whoa, hey hey hey, what's wrong?"

"I---don't---" he heaves. "It---something--"

A shuddering leaping frantic movement within him---her soul, jolted miles away by Ichabod's mention of her death, shocked sputtered and terrified. It blinks back briefly to that moment, when breath had stopped, when the body had ceased, when it was whole before its departure to the in between place. It feels it, tugs violently within Donovan wanting to go surging and soaring back toward its other half. 

Walters observes carefully. 

"Whoo," he gasps, still lying on the floor, his heart hammers too fast, the barriers of his body too strong and  unyielding to the spirit that wants to leap out and back where it belongs. It keeps battering around, fluttering inside, until Donovan's eyes close. 

He stops breathing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Faye rises shakily at the sound of the commotion and creeps along until she sees Donovan, the still state he is in. Two thoughts happen at once.

That he looks the way he did in the hospital, that first time, the second, that whatever has happened to him, may have something to do with Hope.

And then there's one more thought that she wants desperately to silence but she throws herself on the ground beside him, Jenny checking his pulse.

"Still has one," she says in awe, but his chest doesn't move. No breath coming from his mouth. No air escaping his lungs.

Faye rummages around, guided by the warmth of it, feeling for the Star in Donovan's pocket.

 _Show me Hope_. she pleads. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Life of Triumph

They were at odds for nearly a year.

The people whispered of them. How his sermons went on and her ministry was sharp and quick. How he laboured over ceremonial tea and how she scratched out prayers with an efficient harried hand. How he bowed his head with benevolence. How she bowed hers with a regality that made one sink to their knees in turn. 

The way his robes hung upon his frame, making him seem a giant.

The manner in which hers pooled at her feet, to make it appear that she glided among floors instead of walking.

They were each renown for swift justice when dealing with the haunted spirit. Slaying every abomination that did not adhere to the natural order.

They heard tales of the other in the markets, and even in prayer a soul might come forward to inquire why the other had scorned their partner so. 

A ghoul had paused to ask this once, and annoyed, Triumph had cast a handful of grains of rice on the floor to distract it while she went to retrieve her herbs and tools. 

They never had need to cross paths, until a terror began to spread through the land. 

A man had died the week prior but his spirit had refused to leave the body, instead had been draining the life force from people in the village to sustain it, it's body partially stiffening with death it cannot run but hops with its arms outstretched.

Grasping for its next victim, the citizens say. It does not move fast, but the sheer terror of seeing the corpse animated and approaching them instills in them such a potent fear they are paralyzed while it grips their arms, fixing its mouth on their neck to absorb their energy. 

They are dismayed, when they find themselves called to the same house. It is the ghouls wife, fidgety and despairing. 

"He feeds for me," she weeps. "He is desperate for me to join him, or else he return to me. I wailed at his bedside, I prayed so mightily that he not go, it is I that detained his soul here. I have brought this misery upon the village. But I love him still, and were it not a sin, I should go to him. He frightens the people and courts me through the veil,"

"You cannot straddle the line between two worlds," Triumph intones, disgusted by this unholy devotion to a monster. Already she has been to three households today, praying to the ancestors and guides to keep the body until the spirit can be returned, if at all. "You torment him with your love. You must release him."

"You have not known the love that I have," the widow weeps, and then turns to Falcon, who has been standing silently at the other side of the room. Since their arrival Falcon and Triumph have not deigned to lay eyes on the other. "You do not know the power of this, it can surpass even our own bounds. I cannot let him go for so desperately do I want him. If you could cure him and restore him to me,"

"I do not resurrect the dead. It is sin." Falcon decrees. 

Triumph grunts. "Abomination."

"Unholy avarice."

"Disgrace."

"Dishonour." he seethes.

"An affront to the Almighty."

"A Betrayal of order" 

The widow interjects in their bickering. "He will feed again tonight. You must stop him." 

 


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PROMISE I'm gonna sort out Donovan and Hope but some other things gotta happen first. Don't worry, I'll be quick about it.

The warm glow of the Star is uncomfortable to her but only because there's a wearying, oldness to it, a strange familiarity she doesn't have time to contemplate as it hums in her hand and an image begins to take form. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When she went still in her arms at first he had thought it was shock. But after he shook her, caressed her hair, whispered soothing words, waiting for her to scream, to cry out, to be afraid, angry, anything and received silence, his heart began to beat a furious rhythm of fright. He puts his ear to her chest, small relief and infinite wonder he can hear her heart beat but it doesn't settle this issue of her sudden terrible stillness, her eyes frozen in a far away gaze. 

"Please," he prays. "Please I'm sorry, I don't….I don't know what I thought I was doing, Abbie please."

No answers, no flicker nor flutter of lash. 

"You asked me to tell you, and I hoped---" selfishly you hoped. Selfishly you triggered this, thing, and no telling now what can undo it. If anything at all. "Come back," he begs. "Or take me with you, wherever it is you go, only don't leave me again." 

His anguish falls on deaf ears. They are alone in a while not strange, but distant place, and no one knows they are here, and now, he doesn't know if she'll survive. 

And if once more he is at fault for it. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Life of Triumph

"Light that candle in the left corner and this one in the right," 

Triumph scoffs as does the exact opposite. 

"I said, willful thing, white to the left and----"

"And you are mistaken. Have always been on this particular one that's why the prayer always went wrong."

The widow frets. "Please," she gazes worriedly around the room, as if expecting her corpse husband to come gliding through the walls. "What do you plan to do with him?"

"A simple clearing," Triumph answers before he can. "It will void and all within it, including you, of any and all attachments he may have. It should, take from him the will to live." 

"You do not know the stubborn creature he was when alive. He is much worse in death."

"There is not to be power beyond the grave." she replies curtly. "That's why they are so easily dealt with, when one is trained, properly," she levels this subtle barb at Falcon in the corner, grumpily dipping sage into the lit candles and dropping them into small bowls. 

"It is not his own power that fuels him it is---

"Ahh yes, we know, his enduring love," he quips. "We'll put a stop to that, if nothing else, Triumph endeavours to do as efficient a job as I."

"Endeavours" the other Slayer hisses. "When we are through here, Monk, I will endeavour to never lay eyes on you again."

"See that you do---" he breaks off as a sound, a thunking, heavy sound, comes from down the hall. The widow's eyes grow a strange mix of wistfulness and apprehension. 

"He comes to see me before he goes out. To tell me how he longs to be together once more and that he does this only because he's desperate to be united." 

Triumph refrains from spitting her disgust. "And you let him? For how many nights has he come to plead his case with you and then you sit here and watch him leave? gone to do harm to your friends and neighbours?"

"I called you," she begins weakly. 

"After nearly ten have been reported dead or half way." she retorts angrily, unable to accept how anyone could be so stupid. To have such affection still for one dead, to desire to forfeit their own life to join it. 

"Your berating does nothing to help the cause," he grouses, turning now toward the sound growing louder and quicker as it approaches. 

"He will try for you," The widow warns. 

Triumph grips her cane firmly. "Do you expect I will hide?" 

"No, no, Slayer Queen, I'd never."

"Slayer Queen," 

"I do not tell them what to call me"

"You do not tell them what not to call you either. Self righteous sprite." he mutters, settling into his defensive stance, glaring over his shoulder when he feels a sharp rap on  his ankle. 

"Were it not a sin," She threatens. "I would make a spirit of you."

"A dragon?"

"Too, noble," 

"A bird?"

"Is it not enough you are named for one,"

"A lion"

"A tree."

He chances to look across at her, in a stance mirroring his exactly. They did grow up training together after all. But it amazes him in that moment how they have managed to retain this knowledge, as if they never parted ways. "A tree?"

Thunk.

"The other guides have mouths with which to speak, and limbs with which to move,"

Thunk.

"A tree stands by blissfully silent."

His face colours. He is known for being verbose. Even in the time when they were kind to each other, it was a point of which she reminded him, repeatedly. 

"And I should chop you down. Forever spared your incessant chatter and glances and---Jiangshi!" 

Distracted amidst their own bickering the creature was upon them and more fearsome than they had prepared for. The widow had failed to tell them he had been a robust man. Six feet tall and change, corded with muscle. Not long dead before he had risen again, little sign of decay, but a greenish cast to his skin and a prayer paper plastered to his chest. His limbs are long, his tread heavy, he launches himself into the air and lands hard, rocking the floors beneath their feet, his hands reaching to snag either one by their arm or throat. And he is quicker than either of them would have liked. 

They clash their rods against it, back and front, trying to swipe at its feet before it can grab them, and not daring looking into its eyes, full of white light, suspecting it is the eyes that mesmerizes his victims. Their attack is precise, choreographed, lovely. 

A dance they knew so well before petty words divided them. 

"How fortunate I am more than bark and leaf!" he calls as he ducks beneath the arms and whirling away strikes its back. 

"Even now you talk!" 

And then the ghoul screams. 

It halts them both in their tracks, the wail piercing through their souls, shaking them in their core. It goes on and on, the most mournful terrible shriek. 

Brought to her knees by the assault Triumph notices that the candles have gone out, the sage has stopped burning, and the Jiangshi is incensed now, she thinks the room might crumble from the noise. It won't do. 

"Falcon!" she calls.

"Slayer Queen" he brays as ceiling shakes loose, crashing near his head. He has crouched down behind a fallen beam. 

"We cannot fight him here." 

"Higher ground?"

"Let us hope he does not fly," she shouts, dodging another piece of debris, gathering robes above her knees she begins to sprint, hears his long stride gaining on her and the pair of them run through to the main hall, up the stair case, keenly aware of the heavy sound of their pursuer as they speed upwards to the fourth floor, it had been a grand house, he had been an official before he died, and once up there, race across the veranda into the bedroom at the end of the hall, pausing only a moment to note that this must be where the ghoul and his wife once slept.

Bed, still made. 

The open closet, still full of his clothes. 

Fully prepared for him to return. 

And there's a prayer hung above it. The characters read for endurance and preservation. 

Thunk, at the bottom of the stairs and Triumph makes for the open window, hauls herself up on the sill. He makes a protesting noise as she scrabbles with her fingers, gripping and then feels his hands boosting her up until she is on the roof. She turns to help him up beside her and pauses a moment, heaving, catching their breath. The roof shakes with another of the creatures screams. 

"I do not know if incantation will deal with this," Falcon says. 

Triumph shakes her head. She did not mistake the prayer on the closet, and she's sure it is the same one that was on the Jiangshi's chest. "Falcon," she gasps, breathless but in a hurry, "She did not call us to be rid of him. She is the one who raised him." 

A look of foggy understanding descends on him. "The prayers."

Triumph nods, fleetingly pleased that he had noticed the same thing she did. "But why call upon us." he continues, pondering, steadying himself when the house quakes again. 

"It sustains on life force. What greater life force than those of the Holy and ordained? that commune with spirits and the Creator?"

"We are not Slayers, tonight, are we Triumph."

"No."

Something hurtles past them into the sky and comes streaming back down with such force the roof tiles around splinter and fly apart. It's the ghoul. Mouth red and gaping, eyes wild. 

"No. Falcon," Triumph swallows. "We are the sacrifice." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

September 2016

"Do I want to guess where we're going for this?"

Ezra sighs. "I….according to Corbin's notes, its what the Ashes symbolize, is what matters."

Danny narrows his eyes. "Go on."

"We're headed to the river. Lord I hope this works."

"What's at the river?" Sophie asks, gathering the papers she motions for Danny to follow behind as they trail Ezra getting into the car. 

"Let's just say, Jenny had what we were looking for but didn't notice." 

 


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Present day action.

September 2016

Danny shifts uncomfortably outside of the trailer while Sophie and Ezra go in.  

"Didn't she scatter those ashes months ago?" Danny hollers, scanning the area out of habit. 

"Didn't she scatter those ashes months ago" Ezra echoes in a rough irritated grunt. 

With an exasperated scream Sophie ducks her head out from under the sink she's rummaging in. "Don't people usually throw the urn in too?"

"Not Jenny," Ezra's voice is a low contemplative rumble as he turns his daughters home upside down with diligence. "she wanted to keep---it---oh my girl" he sighs heavily as he finds the urn tucked in the covers of her bed, nestled by her pillow. "You ain't been healing right," he murmurs as he lifts it, carefully, cradling it---abruptly wondering  how often had  Jenny wandered in after a hard night, washed the grime, dirt, slime or whatever debris from battle and then crawling into bed sought refuge in wrapping her arms around the simple vase. Stroking it amid tears before drifting into fitful slumber.

"That it?" Sophie huffs, blowing hair out of her face. She is two days old of sweat in the same suit with her boss and former colleagues estranged father. And she is not having a good time.

Hefting it he nods. Silly of him to hope she might have kept any of the ashes, Jenny didn't do things by half measures. But there's a beacon spell he'll try his hand at out by the river, see if he can summon any remnants--even thinking it he knows its far fetched---but he is at wits end and nonsense ideas are ideas nonetheless.

"Success?" Danny finally braves the trailer, looming in the doorway, takes in Foster, flopped on the bed in exhaustion and Ezra with his shoulders beaten down. 

"Yeah. Got a simple spell to recite down where she cast him."

A pause. "Okay. Alright, um, let's head out, then we move on, we've got some other things on this list to fish out."

Wearily, Ezra beckons for Sophie and they hop down the steps, both of them thrown into a momentary period of renewed grief. Of grieving in process. Stone face sharp eyes, fearless quick tongued Jenny Mills, and the idea of her curling around that urn in her bed at night---it breaks them. 

"We're in luck, as it is, one down, just five more to go."

"List says nine."

"Here's the fun part. Last three are living sites."

Both agents stop dead leaving Ezra alone as he grasps the car handle. "Living." Danny presses. "We're not gonna have to sacrifice someone, are we?"

Ezra meets his eyes and then looks away. 

"No. That's murder. It's satanic, there is no way---"

"Look all I know is these relics when brought together, they activate, and they need a carrier."

"Like a host?"

"A conduit, for the power. Don't ask me how Corbin came across  it, what ancient history or religious book he found it in"  because Ezra had damn sure not been as enamoured with the mysteries of the supernatural and didn't make a freaking hobby of exploring it. His knowledge is a forced thing. Just like it's been for Jenny, like it was for Abbie before she embraced duty. "Something about there being a trinity---to awaken it, perform it---"

"I'm not killing anyone to make this work, and I will haul you in before I let you." Danny sets his jaw. 

Ezra's voice is cold but angry when he speaks.

"Ain't _nobody_ got clean hands in this business boy. We're talking about saving the world here. Sometimes _that **costs** lives_." he chokes off, overcome. He raises the urn pointedly, his eyes fill with mournful fire, a man who lost his daughter after he just found her.

" _Someone's, always, gonna, fall_."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The sound of a car turning into the driveway snaps Faye out of the trance. Jenny looks at her, and Walters turns his head toward the door. "Expecting company?"

"None," Faye says, still absorbing what she just saw, she will be cross with Ichabod for trying to force her memory like that---now that she understands fully what has happened to Hope, it was foolish and careless for him to take such a risk, to chance something he hasn't grasped. She tucks the Star into her pocket and approaches the door, flung open suddenly by her daughters. At her perplexed expression they inform her school was let out early due to some accident, broken valve, flood. One of their friends mothers just dropped them off. "Oh. Oh we have  visitors, your….cousin Jenny is here with Mr. Walters, Glory," she emphasizes and her daughters face colours. Phee elbows her twin in the side. 

"I told you"

"Sssh" she hisses. 

"Is that my little informant?" Walters calls gaily, face wreathed in smiles and clapping his hands together as he approaches the door now, showing no signs of worry nor concern that Donovan seems to be for all intents and purpose comatose mere steps away. 

Glory clutches her sisters wrist, pulling her behind her and Faye turns on him, standing before them both. He pauses at the image of the united front, assessing them. 

"I wanted to thank you for your cooperation Glory Dove, it's been very beneficial." he entreats and watches as the young girls gaze hardens, grip on Phee growing stronger until she winces.  "Aren't we friends anymore? I thought you mentioned that an unusual man turned up here, and he's run off with your aunt, I'm here to help track them down."

"Then why are you still here," Glory snaps. "I told you they were missing, why bother coming here."

Faye glances at her out the corner of her eye, intrigued by the simmering rage in her daughters tone. The distrust. She smirks to herself, pivoting on her heel and laying a hand on Glory's shoulder. Something tickles her fingers as she does so, brushes against them gently but she chocks it up to a strained nerve in her hand. She's experienced such things before in her cello study over the years.

The rain outside ceases long enough to let a blazing streak of sunlight in, illuminating the floor around them. 

"I wanted to inquire if your parents knew where they might have gone. Places they'd visit."

Phee speaks quietly, carefully, an aside to Glory. "Do you hear music?"

Glory clenches her fist. She does. So does Faye, for that matter.  A four part harmony, filling in around the tune that sings softly from the Star.  ebbing and flowing, and there's some sort of, warmth emanating from her mothers pocket. She fidgets as her mothers fingers curl deeper into her shoulder. 

"How are you going to find them" Glory demands. Feeling the sudden heat from the sun beating on her back. Sweat trickles between her shoulder blades. 

"Look at you, so, impassioned. So lively." He grins at them and it gives her little comfort. "Lucky for all of us, we're half way to fixing this whole thing. Jennifer," 

Jenny has been quietly listening the whole time while sparing the girls the sight of their father laid out cold. She turns her head imperceptibly now. "You're going to stay here, get acquainted with your little cousins," he coos. Skeptic, Jenny looks to Faye and ticks her chin toward her.

"Why, where's she going?"

"She," Walters continues, beaming, "Is going to take the Star, and track them down."

Jenny processes this information slowly, body shifting more towards them. Pauses at the sight of the girls. One of them resembles Abbie. But there's something else about Mother and children at the door, a hazy sort of light---her eyes begin to brim with water and she blinks them back, clearing her head. She nods to Donovan "We can't leave him as is--"

That is the moment in which the girls finally see their father and both scream, rushing to go toward him. 

"We won't. We'll all be here." He draws his gun. "No one is leaving here but you." he jerks the barrel at Faye. 

"Put that away," Jenny snaps, rocketing to her feet.  "what's wrong with you these are children."

" _Children_." he taunts. He casts his eye on Faye, regarding him with disdain. "If only they were just. Bring back Ichabod and…whatever you want to call her,"

"They're not even in the country." Faye spits venomously. "It can take me days--" 

"Have you no _Faith_?" he taunts. "I know you'll hurry, Faye Dove. After all, I have your daughters." he fires a shot into the ceiling above and the girls flinch and scream. Faye moves toward him before he swings the gun back on her. 

 "I _believe_ in you," Walters says, voice warm, almost as if he means to comfort her. "I have _unwavering Faith_ , in your ability. Don't you believe in yourself? To protect your children?  Your husband, even what's her name---?"

"Hope"

"Abbie"

"Her." he drawls. "I know you can do it. There's no one else for the job."

"Start talking Walters." Jenny cuts in. "What's your end game here." she strides toward him and reaches to take the gun from his hand.

They begin to struggle.

"Mom!" Phee screams as another shot goes off. Jenny and Walters crash into the wall, still wrestling with the gun. 

"Jenny!" Faye lurches toward them, ducking when the barrel swings her way and another bullet zooms past her ear, splintering a mirror on the wall. Glory frantically shakes Donovan, sobbing. "Daddy?" she shivers as the adults yell and curse. "Daddy wake up, please, wakeup."

Jenny manages to get the weapon and begins running down the hall, leaping and just barely clearing the space above Glory and Donovans head. Walters roars as he takes off after her, and Faye jumps on his back, locking her arm around his neck.

 He thrashes, flailing, clawing at her fingers, he makes to back her into a wall but before she can even _touch_ it,  a savagely wounded cry escapes her. 

She releases him, dropping down on her knees, panting and blinking stars from her eyes. The Star in her pocket sings shrilly.

 _Something's broken_. Her scream throws them all into a moment of suspension. 

It had not been an earthly sound. 

Glory, shaking with fear and fury--potent reckless things--- is burning up mad as she gets to her feet and looks back, torn between her wounded mother and unconscious father. 

Cursing at the sound of Faye's pain Jenny turns back, gun aimed high but Walters is too quick and catches her hand, wrenching it behind her back. Phee scampers to her sisters side, clutches her hand and Glory feels a cooling rush.She meets her twins eyes. Everything will be fine. Her gaze says, somewhere deep within, even though the surface is a coating of pure unfiltered fear. I have Hope. Glory nods, squeezing back, both huddling against their father's still warm, non breathing body. 

"When I'm done with you I want answers" Jenny demands as she sends a kick to his chest and reaches for her back pocket--falters when she recalls Walter's took her gun earlier at Mother Cece's house. 

Faye struggles to her feet, keening still for the bizarre injury that feels like something has bent or fractured. Her head feels hot and her mouth is dry. She lifts her head just in time to see Walters take aim. 

"The Witnesses are the key to saving the world Jennifer and  _these two_ , have jeopardized them---So you're gonna cooperate, Faye. Do your part getting them back or they're gonna pay for it" 

His finger squeezes the trigger. 

A shot rings out. 

Three cries of disbelieving horror.

Jenny stands there, in suspended surprise before she goes down, on her knees, and sprawls to the side. 

 

~~~~~~~~~

Ichabod bursts into the emergency room with her in his arms.

"Please." he begs. "She's not breathing."


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well well welly well well.
> 
> A familiar face.
> 
> Something's making news.
> 
> Someone's going on a journey.
> 
> And...something isn't what we thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys make this worth writing, in every way. Seriously, thank you for reading and supporting and being you and sharing your ideas and theories <3

 

"An american traveller touristing in London Ontario with her husband has been diagnosed with a mysterious illness."

Winnie glances up from the book she's reading in her new home. She went as far as she could get when she ran. Holed up in the miniature metropolitan of Mississauga Ontario, bout two hours and change of a drive from the place they've just mentioned. Drove through it to get here, mere days before. Place is scarce save a few boxes, barely unpacked, but she is taking her leisurely time, a moments rest with the best seller she bought today while she was out exploring.

 Got a condo. Small, luxurious thing, near the central mall in the area. She feels a little, how her mother used to say "Stush" walking around there, fancy. She'll need a job soon, and shouldn't be too hard the way the city moves. It's like a minutely mild mannered version of Toronto. Worst traffic she's seen in years. Her tv is one of the first things she got set up. Still panicked about her fleeing the country after Walters, listens to the news expecting to hear a man hunt for Winnie Hodge, evading the FBI--If you see her dial----and then she begins to hyperventilate with worry. 

So she's following her usual routine tonight. Standard fair. 

Till they mention a woman's been brought in who's stopped breathing. 

But her heart still beats. 

Lowering the book she reaches for the remote on the box nearest her chair and presses the volume. 

"Abigail Hope Dove was brought in to Victoria Hospital Emergency today by her newlywed husband Ichabod Crane."

Her ears burn. She reaches for her glasses. Leans in, blinking at the screen. That's him alright. 

He looks _dreadful._ He's blinking and very obviously distracted as they try to ask him questions. He fidgets, he's visibly uncomfortable, and amidst that they replay the earliest footage---probably before the media swarm had begun to tax his mind--of him stating with frantic clarity that he'd woken up and found her this way. 

It's stranger than fiction and he's lucky for right now that they're believing it. They aren't reporting finding anything unusual about her, but it'll be a matter of time before someone takes it in their head to call police to investigate further. 

Number one, Winnie is damn sure Crane wasn't married when she'd seen him last, not even a week ago.

"It's confounding medical professionals across the board, no one has seen anything like it."

Winnie begins to sweat, and without thinking, she's reaching for her keys, her bag with all her essentials in it---passport, money, all her identification and banking information that she never unpacked just in case---her phone, searches haphazardly in her closet, grabs a coat at random. A navy trench, well that'll do. Pauses to turn off the television. Cutting off the doctor reporting that "For now we're calling it the Sleeping Spell."

 And cursing she locks up, races down the hall and presses the button for the elevator.

"Come on come on," she prays, hopping from one foot to the other. When the door pings open she questions her sanity. Winnie should be running far and fast away from anything remotely connected to Walters, for surely, that's exactly where tracking down Ichabod Crane is going to lead her----but she could see how distraught he was on the television. Some part of her knows, he needs help. 

And hell, Mother Cece helped when she didn't need to. Looked out for her. Stood behind her. Kept her safe and looked after, even knowing inevitably Winnie would spill the beans---not there had been much to spill---to save her hide. 

She'd been there.

Maybe the time has come for Winnie to return the favour. 

It's one helluva long drive for her to convince herself of the fact. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Okay, just, give me some space, and we'll get this over with." Ezra sets the urn down on the bank and closing his eyes begins to recite a short verse, over and over. 

Danny watches from a safe distance, growing more and more weary of this trek. He doubts his importance in any of this, and only because it sounds whiny does he not suggest that perhaps he should head back to regular work.

But then he recalls this was a mission set out by his higher up himself---even though he's leery of Walters motives. 

"Sorry, Mr. Mills," Sophie starts, voice unsure and casting her gaze back on the waters that seem willfully calm, with little inclination to bring forth anything helpful. Ezra cracks one eye open at her but continues his incantation. "Sorry, but I---don't quite grasp how this is supposed to have the same….potency, what about what the Ashes---symbolize…..means, anything at all?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Life of Triumph

"Run." 

Triumph needs little inclination, they take off at a dangerous sprint along the roof top. The Jiangshi follows, leaping and plummeting and the tiles can only stand so much. It begins to cave inward, starting at the end, the roof begins to crumble, creeping up fast behind them. 

And still it howls.

"We cannot out run it," Falcon huffs. 

"Reason with it then?" she asks, casting a hurried glance over her shoulder, whips back around before colliding with the venting for the fireplace. 

It shrieks. 

The tile she lands on obliterates and down she goes, clawing for purchase before a white hand, long fingers grasp firmly around her wrist. "Let _go_ " she implores him, already looking down, legs swinging, trying to approximate her jump. She swiftly comes to the conclusion she won't make it. But it's gaining on them. 

"I will _not_." He says with conviction, clenching his teeth hauls her up beside him with all of his might that he keels over when she's out of the hole. She lands on top of him and winds him in equal measure. "Ooof."

She raises her self up above him, and for that brief second, it's a parcelled moment in time. 

He has the absurd thought that he would like to see her like this again. Soon. Often. Gazing up into her eyes peering down at him with mismatched amusement and wonder. 

"Thank you," she says, voice sincere. 

"Always." is out of his mouth before he can stop himself, both of them regard the other in shock but another thunk is enough to remind them of the task at hand.

She bounds nimbly to her feet, wrenching him up beside her they turn toward the where the monster was chasing them and find only the framework of the house below. 

But a whistling sound is coming from above them. In tandem they both look up and utter a soft curse. It lands where they stand and they all go crashing, hurtling down four floors, and then they're not. 

They'd clutched each other when their descent began, matching screams from both of them but now they wink their eyes open and peer around in astonishment at the world passing slowly by them. 

Falcon peers around and then looks over Triumphs head and shuts his eyes back tight. "Don't look." he warns, which has the opposite effect. Triumph turns and finds herself eyes to eye, nose to nose with the Jiangshi. 

They are in its outstretched arms. 

It's _saved_ them. 

"I do not understand," she mutters hurriedly, face ashen as she turns back around, her fingers bunch in Falcons robe. "Why doesn't he feed and be done."

"Possibly he doesn't like eating on the go." Falcon offers, feeing similarly sick being in such close proximity to the thing, which now, up close, has the faintest stench of beginning decay. Like meat turning bad. 

The ghoul lets out a smaller sound. A whimper. 

They both share the same questioning look. 

It lands with a thud and Falcon leaps first and then stretches his arms for Triumph. She slides into his grasp easily, eager to put distance between themselves and the creature that surely must desire to devour them now. 

But it doesn't move. It's eyes, wide and terrifying turn down at the corners, beseeching. 

"Is it…..sad?" Triumph ventures. 

"The dead don't feel," he retorts hotly and earns himself a glare. 

"He didn't exactly do a thorough job of the dying part, did he?"

It makes another sound, a moan. 

"It's troubled." 

"So it's _sad_." 

Tentatively stepping forward Falcon raises his palms to show he means no harm. 

"I will run while it drains you," 

"When this is over---"

"If we survive. You can talk me to death with your threats and pontificating then" 

Making a disgruntled noise he redirects his focus to the ghoul waiting patiently for his approach. "What ails you, Jiangshi"

A puff of smoke streams out of its open mouth and he dodges it. But the air carries words. 

"She raised me and will not let me go."

"Tell us something we don't know. Where has she gone now?" Triumph snaps. 

"She does not want to part with me. And I do not want to leave her. But she does not understand what she has made me in creating this." it continues. "It torments me what I have done, it makes me hunger and crave---she has made a monster of me in order to love her."

"And what would you have us do?" 

" _Die_. Quietly. And that will bring my husband back." And there is the widow standing behind them, wielding a great sword.

She swings.

~~~~~~~~~~

September 2016

The bullet hangs suspended in the air and then clatters to the floor. Faye gapes at it. 

Jenny collapsed out of shock. 

" _Knew it_ ," Walters sneers, letting off another round of fire for demonstration and all of them pause before pinging and rolling on the floor. "Would you look at that, bullets that stop in mid air---it's nothing short of a _Miracle_. Impressive defence isn't it? Bring back the Witnesses, Dove. Grab whatever you need! Take your phone! here, I'll even give you my list. Just get them back here. your husband's life might depend on it."

"Why don't you go?"

"What, and risk that you get in your heads to run away from me? No, I won't make that mistake again. Barely got a flimsy word out of Winnie before she absconded with the money." 

"Winnie---?"

"Didn't you know? Killed her husband and begged me to bargain for her freedom if she spied for me."

"You snake." 

"Clocks ticking Faye. Bicker with me, save your family, save the fate of the world, up to you." 

~~~~~~~~~~

She's checked that Jenny is okay and Donovan's heart is still thudding in there, she kisses his brow, pets her new in laws hair and then opens her arms and embraces her daughters fiercely. She has the Star and the Hymnbook in her bag.

"I'm coming back." she promises them. "Don't you let that man scare you, you are _Glory and Phoenix Grace Dove_ , named by one of the most stubborn, stalwart women I've ever known, your grandmother. She told me to name you for the lives you'll inherit---well they sound like the names of fighters to me. Names of girls who bypass boundaries and can face danger." even as she says it tears leak from her eyes. "I believe in you. _In us_. I'll---I'll be so quick you, you won't even miss me," 

With trembling lips they hug her back, the air thrums with their strength, their protective fierce, unwavering Faith and Love for one another. They start to feel a little warm even. 

The melody pulses softly around them.

Faye takes a deep breath, kisses their cheeks and pulls away, rising to her feet. 

"I'll know if you hurt them" she warns. 

Walters smiles. "Hurry back, Faye." 


	27. Chapter 27

As she starts up the car, Faye plucks a feather from her hair. 

~~

"Mr Crane? your wife has a visitor."

His head snaps up. Could it be that Donovan had managed to track them down? He's not looking forward to the argument that's sure to follow but there's an incredible relief in the  idea they've been found. 

"Send them in," he barely manages to muster a voice. He's felt so weak and drained since they brought her in. He has seen her like this only once and he hates himself for distant way he had treated her then, at least she was talking. Now she's a silent haunting creature with the machinery beeping and chiming around her, he becomes fascinated by monitor tracking her heart beat, and then infuriated that she will not draw breath---and then angry at himself once more because he somehow managed to trigger this horrible thing. 

"Crane?" a voice rasps and he blinks dumbly. "It's me, Winnie,"

"Winnie?" he repeats. 

"From Mother Cece's house?"

"How did you----"

"You've made the news," she hisses, closing the door a little behind her and edging to the bed, casting her eyes over Hope's form in the bed. She purses her lips. "It's true?"

"The news?"

"She's not breathing?"

"It's made the _news_?"

"Crane!" she snaps. Her eyes dart over Hope again. "You have to tell me what's going on."

Suspicion chooses now to pay him a visit. "What are you doing here."

She huffs and flops down in a chair, drawing it close enough in front of Crane that their knees touch. "I know something is odd about you, no I don't know what. But Walters asked me to report to him if I saw you come by---I did" she answers his silent  probing question. "But I told him you'd been at the house and that was it, I didn't mention Dove. I'm….I'm on the run from him." she shifts in the chair, aware of how Crane's previously weary eyes have sharpened to alertness. 

"Did you say Walters?"

"He promised no one would charge me for killing Ralph if I played informant."

"You killed a man Miss Winnie?"

"An abusive husband who planned to do me the favour if I hadn't fought him." she goes quiet a beat. "I didn't mean to kill him. But I knew his rage….he wasn't about to just….stop, because I screamed."

He struggles to process this information. Tries to align friend and foe in his head. Suppose she still works for Walters?

"Where is he"

"Who"

"Walters" he spits. 

"I don't know. I hope far away. I'm not keen on getting held for murder. He was FBI, Ralph, it'll land me life for sure."

"You claim he attacked you."

"And Walters threatened to make it look like homicide if I didn't cooperate. I was between a rock and a hard place."

"You flee him and yet you have come here." his tone is hard edged, eyes flickering over Hope again. "Why."

"If its making news here, it's probably already been broadcasted back home. It's a strange enough story, people will run with it. And it's a matter of time before someone starts to think of digging around and….look I just, humming hymn books aside, I figure you're probably not the sort who likes to answer a lot of intrusive questions." she glances again at Hope. "first one they're gonna ask is if she ate anything strange. What hotel you stayed at. They'll want to contact family." she narrows her own eyes at him now. "They'll want to see a marriage certificate. They'll want to know why you lied when you admit you don't have one."

Her words ring with inevitable truth but what is there to be done? For all he knows Hope is walking a very fine tightrope between life and death, the hospital and all its scientific wonders may be all that can help her. "I don't know what's wrong with her, medical help might be all there is."

"Does Dove know you're here?"

He frowns. "It….this is his sister. It was very spur of the moment."

"You _crossed the border_ spur of the moment?" she repeats dubiously. 

"I did not claim to make sense," he replies tersely. 

"What does Walters want with you," she asks. "Why would he be willing to bargain with me to know about you? And have you kidnapped her?"

"I would never take her against her will."

"She volunteered?"

Ichabod bites his lips together. 

"Was…..is she sick? This a bucket list thing?"

"What's a bucket list?"

"Something people want to do before they die. Like…..if they have a terminal illness." Winnie fleetingly wonders why this is a concept that needs explaining.

Pure ice cold horror settles on him like a mantle. He thinks his own heart feels a chill at the prospect of it. "No" he forces out. "No, there is nothing wrong---"

"Well," Winnie gestures to the hospital room. "There's something. But you can't stay here…..if there's something, non medical wrong with her, they'll detain you. To study her at least, they're calling it the 'Sleeping Spell'" 

"What are my options" he asks bitterly, looking forlornly at Hope on the bed. "They won't permit us to leave as is."

"I'm going to call Dove. Tell them where you are, I….transferred contacts before I ditched my old phone."

~~~~~~~~~

The phone rings. 

Walters stashes the gun, keeping an eye on the girls, one huddled next to Jenny who's still out like a light and one next to their father, like little guardians. How sweet, he thinks, smirking to himself as he goes to the kitchen and picks up the phone.

"Hello. Dove Residence" he chimes, sneering at the girls who eye him with dismay. 

~~~~~~~

Winnie hangs up abruptly. He startles. 

"Walters." she explains. "He answered the house phone. He's there. Why is he there?" 

"I…I do not know."

Winnie shoots a glare at him, starting to think she's made a mistake doing that insane drive to be here to help him, he can't be this oblivious as to why an FBI agent is going through such lengths to track him down. There's something he's not telling her, and while she knows it's just as well, she's direly afraid she's stepped  in something that won't going to stink up her shoes. 

"I'll try a cell phone."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The phone goes off on Donovan's prone form, on vibrate. Phee is nestled beside him just close enough to feel when it hums. She presses close against her father's leg, trying to muffle it. Praying desperately that Walter hasn't heard it while she tries to covertly slip it out of Donovan's pocket into her hand. It's louder once she withdraws it to her dismay, eyes widening in shock and Glory, who has been watching on the other side of the room begins to cough, loudly. Without cease. 

She keeps hacking until Walters starts hunting through cupboards for glass to get her water. With his back turned Glory makes a shooing motion and Phee hurries to bathroom, feet so nimble and quick it's like she's flown the short distance down the hall, locking the door behind her. She can still hear Glory's erratic fake coughing outside while she fumbles to answer the phone. 

"Hello?"

"Donovan?"

"No it's Phee." she whispers frantically. "Please help, he's got a gun."

"Gun!" the voice on the other end exclaims. 

"Please. Our father isn't breathing---but he's alive!"  she continues. The line has gone silent but Phee keeps talking, she has to hope they're listening, paying attention, that they'll help. "Our aunt is knocked out. It's just us here. He made our mother leave." she rambles, breath going raspy because she can hear steps approaching the door. The knob wiggles. 

"Hey," Walters voice coaxes. "You alright in there? been in there a while"

"I'm fine!" Phee manages, "Just….." what was it that Lynn---two years older---had griped about the other day? "My period!" she exclaims. "I'm changing my pad!"

A pregnant pause, the knob stops rattling and she hears the footsteps retreat. 

"Phee," the voice on the other end speaks at last. "It's Winnie, do you remember me?"

"Yes," she sighs gratefully. "Yes, please come Winnie, help us."

"I'm not in town, Phee. But I'm with Mr. Crane"

"Mr. Crane?"

"He's here with your….aunt, aunt Hope?"

"Is she safe?"

"Where did he send your mother," Winnie asks instead, but Phee begins to worry.

"What's happened to Auntie Hope?"

"….it sounds like her and your father have the same….bug." she winces. "But where is your mother, I  need to get her."

"He sent her out with a Star and hymnbook."

Winnie loses her feeble grip on rational calm. "A _Star_ and a _**hymnbook**_?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He snatches the phone out of her hand. "Little Phee, it's me, Mr. Crane,"

"What have you done with Auntie Hope? Why did you take her?"

"Please Miss Phee, you must understand I meant her no harm. She wanted an adventure. But she's not well, what's happened to your father?"

"He stopped breathing. Mom left to find you, where are you?" she hisses, trying to keep her voice low.

His brain whirls, trying to make connections. Donovan's caught a part of Hope's witness ability, he knows that, but could it be that whatever jolting thing happened to Hope has done the same to Donovan? "We'll get to you," he assures instead, rising to his feet to pace. "Be brave. Don't tell Walters anything. We'll…we'll get there." 

"Phee? it's Winnie again, can you remember your mom's phone?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

The Star has been singing singing singing since she left. She doesn't need to hold it she finds for it to show her the way, She doesn't need the GPS. She just keeps driving, gliding along the traffic, so smoothly, at such speed it's a wonder she doesn't get pulled over, she's practically flying, but she passes car after car without a disturbance. Until her phone rings. 

"Faye?"

"Who's calling."

"It's Winnie Hodge and I'm here with Crane. We're in Canada. And Hope's in hospital. Please tell me you can get here---"

As she says it the Star sings and shows that what she says is truth. She glances at the highway sign and gasps. Impossible. There is no way she has covered that distance. Not in that time, there is no way---and then she is gliding through the border crossing, not stopping at the check point, no one stops her, it's as if she's invisible, as if the whole vehicle has suddenly become an unseeable thing. Moving at the speed of light. 

"I'm….I'm here." Faye gasps in shock as she pulls into the Hospital parking. 

"You're _**what.**_ "

"I'm here." Faye laughs, giddy with disbelief and a furious beating as she leaps up the steps, bolts past the nurses desks---again unchecked, and alights outside of the hospital room. "Hope," she gasps, rushing toward the bed. Winnie and Ichabod gape at her. "What's wrong with her?" she asks, "Is she?" she bends her head to her chest. "My God she's like Donovan." she notices only then that he and Winnie are staring at her. "What?"

Winnie swallows thickly. "Your pocket is glowing. And singing."

"And your head, Miss Faye. Your head is,"

"What," she asks, wheeling around in search of a mirror she goes to little washroom tucked in the corner but sees nothing they mention, although she looks more wide awake and rosy than she feels. And there's something….shifting above her shoulders behind her. She turns quickly to catch a glimpse but sees nothing. When she goes back outside they're still staring. "Walters sent me. Something about a song, and Donovan's just like she is. She can't stay this way…if she gets hurt like this you'll die too."

He blinks. "Me?"

"Eternal souls throughout all time forever etc. I know about you." she says and Winnie's knees quake, feeling weak she settles back into the chair. But Crane holds firm. Suddenly something feels….familiar. 

"The melody," he begins. 

"Yeah I noticed." Faye grumbles. "More parts. We don't have time, come on, we've got to go." she takes down the bars of the hospital bed and Winnie goes to keep watch at the door as she and Ichabod remove needles neatly and heft Hope out of the bed, Faye swinging her effortlessly up into her arms, turning towards the door and something whacks into him in the process, sending him sprawling clumsily across the floor. It makes a racket. 

"sssh!" Winnie hisses, vaguely aware that for all of their noise, no one seems to take them on. "Go, go!" she urges Faye ahead, Hope bobbing in her arms. 

Crane gets to his feet, bewildered as he plucks a feather from his mouth.

Neither he nor Winnie bother to question why no one stops them as they leave. 

 


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ITS BEEN A WHILE
> 
> my deepest apologies.
> 
> A life ends, another begins
> 
> another artifact found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> forgive my clumsy history and connection making, but I tried, I tried really hard to make it work. 
> 
> comments please!

Jenny came to when Glory started all of her faux coughing but has been playing possum since, sorting her thoughts under the cover of being unconscious.   
And her thoughts direly need sorting.   
Jenny has seen enough in her life---for her whole life is comprised of things no normal person has been unfortunate enough to see--and she knows supernatural. She knows she's never heard of bullets that can stop THEMSELVES in midair. She knows it's usually a sign if people glow. She knows what the air feels like when there's power at work.   
In this house with Walters keeping guard, Donovan in his bizarre state, and these two little girls, Jenny feels a presence in the air about them. And it's nothing she's ever felt before.  
~~~~~  
Winnie hesitates outside the car doors. Faye glares at her, "Well come on we don't have time Winnie"

"I think this is where I leave you, Faye, Mr. Crane." she fidgets nervously. "I've got…some things waiting for me back home and quite frankly I came out here to outrun them."

"If it's Walters you're afraid of I understand." Faye replies. "But that man is holding my family hostage and…..he told me Winnie, about Ralph….he deserved it for what he did to you---"

"Not like that Faye you don't understand I am deeply truly sorry for what I did to him, I never meant to I----"

"Take your atonements to God, not me, not Walters. You come back with us though Winnie and I'll, we'll have your back."

"Can we hurry," Crane calls weakly from where he has already arranged and strapped in Hope. "I beg of you," he pleads. When the women turns toward him they are both a little shattered and touched by the way he has folded himself around her, swung her legs up in his lap and stroking her face. The intimacy of it is at once jolting but familiar. Of course they're like this. 

For Crane's part, he cannot get close enough to her. Cannot hold her tightly enough, cannot soothe or whisper enough frantic endearing pleas. He knows his heart so thoroughly now, and to think something could take her away from him, again, before he could utter the words---he would wish the Lord smite him himself if he has failed something as simple as this once more. 

"Well?" Faye implores. 

Shaking her head slowly from side to side Winnie curses as she opens the passenger door. "I just got settled in and all, haven't even finished unpacking."

Faye offers her an encouraging smile as she puts the car in gear, backing out of the driving spot, pats the Star, humming in her pocket. "Might be a sign you weren't meant to stay there." she winks. 

In the morning Hope's bed will be found empty. 

But no one will remember there was anyone there to begin with.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Life of Triumph

"This witch" Triumph mutters before ducking and rolling to the side, narrowly escaping where the blade slices through the air, aiming for her head. 

"What you do is madness and ill conceived." Falcon says, hands held up before him as if he would reason with the widow. "You must know the pain you have caused others. The lives you have stolen, all for what?"

"Love" The widow says numbly, and then strikes at him. He lets out a small yelp when he catches sight of wisps of his own hair dancing off his head. He only just narrowly dodged. "A love I never thought I would have I could not just let him go."

"You've made a monster," Triumph counters. "He's tormented this way."

"It's not true! He will adjust, he just needs your life force, I had so hoped you'd be more benevolent about it."

"Someone banged her on a gong when she was young, must be."

"Triumph!" he hisses. 

"Please" the ghoul rasps, his smoke breath sweeping through the room and the monks side step it. "Please Hina, I cannot carry on like this, you cannot let me be this thing alone,"

"I will do whatever it takes to have you back with me!" she cries, and finding renewed strength, goes swinging wildly, but with frightening precision after Falcon. He balances on his toes and turns this way and that and Triumph attempts to sneak up on her but the clever griever draws another short blade just as quickly and holds them each at knife point. 

"One should do." she entreats. Wisps of black hair escaping her knot, sticking to her fevered skin. "I will spare one, and the village, if one of you offer. I will have my husband back. He will return to me,"

"And all the others he drained die."

"For love. Don't you see it? there is no more noble reason for a life to expire than in keeping the ones we love close, no matter the cost, at any cost, I would go any length to be with him----"She pauses.

Her body goes rigid. Her grip grows too tight around the handles, and begin to quaver. "What are you doing," she rasps. 

The Jianghsi's eyes brim with murky water. "Do you feel it?"

"Stop!" she cries, all of her muscles straining, her eyes bulging. "Stop you do no understand what it is you do!"

"This, is what you have made me do, over, and over again. By calling me back." 

Triumph and Falcon step away, transfixed by the outstretched hands that grasps at the shoulders of the widow from behind, his terrible soul stealing mouth stretched wide, face pinched with pain. "You have made me do this." 

"No," she struggles, "If you love me, you will stop, you must……"

"Come away, Hina," 

"No! No you can live again! with me!" the ghoul slackens his hold, the effort, the act of draining his beloved even with his cursed soul rends him. "You must let me finish! and we will be reunited!" she regains her grip and then thrusts at the one nearest her.

"Falcon!"

The blade sinks in to flesh. Breath stops. His knees buckle and the widows face crumples. 

She underestimated his level of torment. His speed. His desperation to be freed. The ghoul had moved at the last moment, standing before Falcon and the blade drove in, through him. 

Falcon falls to his knees, breathing deeply after the close encounter and can only watch as the weapons clatter to the floor and the widow goes to her love, face turning greenish yellow and then cold grey. Little lights lift up and out of him, flying, racing toward the bodies of those who drift, their souls released. 

"My love," the widow weeps.

"Hina"

Triumph edges closer, gripping her staff. 

"Why," she sobs.

"You imprisoned me trying to bring me back, Hina. But now you have set me free. Now I can have peace."

"There is no life for me without you," she wails. "There is none. Please take me with you"

But the body has already grown cold, the eyes dead. Her cries of anguish crowd out all the angry thoughts that had been previously swirling in Triumph's mind. This woman had risked lives for this man,and should she be forgiven so horrendous a sin? certainly not. No love is worth the payment of others, yet she can feel her pain. She considers praying to the guides later for forgiveness should she deliver the woman herself when Falcon begins to rise to his feet. 

"We will burn the body." he says. "So that disease does not spread." his voice is strange as he says it, glancing at them, widow and corpse, and then away, perhaps feeling conflicting emotions of empathy and anger for what has transpired here this night. 

When the crying stops he waits for an answer but the widow has slumped over the form. 

They had underestimated how deft and quick her hands were. She could have been a great soldier, she could have fought for great things.

But Love, is a great and terrible thing. She fought for that, in her own wicked way. And rather than face the defeat and moments to contemplate anew what she has lost, her failure, in saving, in keeping the man she loves---she stole her own life instead. 

Triumph hisses and then utters a prayer when Falcon rolls her body away, the neat blade stuck in her chest. A perfect mark. 

They clean the house, what they could. Said their prayers and made their offerings for forgiveness of these two souls lost, of their own inability to stop it, to cleanse the home of evil, and then, already so weary, they build a pyre behind the house, and they burn them together. Standing side by side, and suddenly all quarrels of their past obliterate.   
Their lives are too short and dangerous to be enemies, when they can fight together. When they care, a stubborn fundamental way, about the other. When he saved her from the fall. When she cried out, thinking he'd been struck by the widows knife. 

They gather the ashes when done and pour them into a vase.

The Ashes of Beasts, unholy creatures, abominable deeds, but victims still of the human condition, still capable of wanting and craving, love.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The feud ends as simply as it had begun. They abandon their separate camps and instead take over the former home of the ghoul and widow, rebuilding it day by day. One day amidst all of the cleaning Triumph tripped over rubble, spraining her ankle cutting up her palms and knees, and Falcon had to carry her, setting her on the bench to tend to it. Oh, she griped at him the whole way through "Not that herb" and "You don't wrap like that." and "you honestly think a prayer paper is going to heal these quicker"   
He'd smirked while he worked and after had leaned forward and kissed her cheek. She gaped at him. "I wish for many years of this Triumph." he mused, eyes twinkling. "Taking care of you and you disagreeing with me and myself knowing that without a fault I am right."   
She wanted to argue with him, she did, just to be contrary, but the sudden shift toward tenderness without warning shattered a wall. "You can call me Abigail, Ichabod."  
"The names given for our spirits during study in our temple years. So familiar Abigail. Almost intimate."  
She'd gripped his hand, fingers curling over his. "Another word, just one more word you irksome stork,"----he'd stifled a chuckle at that---"one more word I'll….hurt you."  
"You have beautiful eyes."

They fought together, many years. Fell in love too, a troublesome side effect of being soul mates. But they bore these burdens, valiantly, and passionately, until they died. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Present day

The water begins to burble and even while repeating the incantation Ezra eyes it warily. Danny gets up and both he and Sophie draw their guns, aiming at the water. There is every possibility that what they call up to help them might be unwilling. 

Black dust, glittering particles of ash come leaping and swirling up out of the water, dancing in the air, weaving and diving round them, before funnelling back into the urn in Ezra's hands. He holds it steady as the rush of it comes surging at him, stirring the wind, roaring in their ears with a feral shriek. 

When the last of it trickles in, the water of the river heaves and showers them with spray. They hear music. A crooning voice. It emerges out of the guttural roar of a beast, a monster, a warm, soft voice edges and pushes through the animal noise. A human sound fighting through the creature. 

"Is that," Sophie queries, eyes squinted as she casts her gaze around them. "That voice---"

"A tide so strong that washed away sins, that purged and cleansed all the hurt and pain, a love so great that it lived in death, I've never known a love that was stronger, yet, the dance of the beauty, the stroke of his brush, the fire that caught and blazed in a rush, the light that burned, the walls that gave way, the tide that broke on the darkest caves. The tide that lifted all the hearts laid low. The tide that moved above what they know. The love that was giving, like a bountiful tree, the tide of love that could set us free, the tide of love that could set, us free, against all odds found you and me---"

The voice dies and the trio stare at one another, perplexed. "What was that." Danny asks, eyes shifting, waiting for something else unexpected. 

Ezra laughs. "Beats me how he would have heard it, but I think that's Joe's voice, and if it's what I think, we don't have to go far for the next artifact, I think its here." The water heaves again, as if in answer, splashing them again, and if he's not mistaken, the fish beneath the surface are dancing, twirling, changing and shifting colour. As if across a stage. 

"The Tide of Love. Right here, third on down the list."

"How would Joe have known it was here though."

"Bottle that water, we'll try to rationalize that later." Ezra orders as Sophie goes scrambling back to the car. Ezra caps the urn and tucks it safely under his arm, nodding encouragingly at Sophie while she scoops up the water, still swirling and shimmering, red, gold, blue.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Past

It was a story of legend, that commissioned a ballet, then an opera, and most recently had been adapted. Old stories are retold through millennia and through years, in varied art forms, and this one life, the life of Abigail Love Grey and Ichabod Harold Sparrow, would become one of the most infamous loves of the ages. August Corbin, in his younger years, had an interest in art, and even then had been vaguely interested in the supernatural. He'd made a sojourn after high school, before he would return and join the army, to France. Wanting to see the ballet, and of course, to visit the mythical body of water---that claimed to have transformed the face of the world one transfixing night on stage. 

He'd found it, bottled it---a smuggler even then---and had brought it back, along with all of the memorabilia he could. It wouldn't be until after, when he'd discovered the danger of these nine artifacts, his first rash and reckless decision then---he'd thrown the water in the Sleepy Hollow River. 

He'd been foolish enough to believe that whatever magical properties it contained would wash away. He'd failed to understand the essence of the thing: Love

A Love, that kept flowing steadily, though not as potently, throughout Sleepy Hollow.

A Love that Joe would have heard sung by his own father when he was young. A Love Joe carried for Jenny. A Love his remains had instantly called to, when his ashes---those of a tormented beast that against all terrible odds had felt a profound love---were cast into the water.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
"It's….it's dancing," Danny says, taken aback as he peers into the bottle. "There's something….."

"It's beautiful" Sophie murmurs.

"Well, that's two." Ezra says, mouth dry as they all examine the glass. "The Book of Grace…..that might be back at the house. These last three have little crosses next to them….I think these are the conduit sites." 

The Glory of God  
The Miracle of Hope  
The Unwavering Faith  
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The Life of Love

Her birth name, Abigail Love Grey. But there were so many Abigail's, so many Greys, when she tried for the stage, she would surely be lost among them all. So her middle name would do. That and her small, twirling, strong graceful stature. That and her dark glowing skin. Exotic, they had whispered. Beautiful. Nothing, some had hissed when they had not been called again to the bar.   
But she had stretched her limbs and danced, so prettily, so dainty, they had been given little choice.   
In four years she would be star of the troupe. The Prima Ballerina. And the people would crowd and for tickets, ogling the posters, painted and sketched by the shy scuttling artist who admired from a far but never drew near---the renderings of her in the latest production. The words, "Starring, Love Grey, La Petite Chocolat" The little chocolate---a term of endearment the people had seen no choice but to run with when the King and his wife had come to see and he had called her such, a captivating darling on the stage. He is a philandering husband, of which everyone is aware and he admires Love deeply, but her array of suitors makes even the king hesitant in calling for anything more than the occasional portrait. It would not to do for the King of a nation to openly clash with lesser citizens for her affection.   
The Queen largely ignores it. For her part she laughs at this smart little nymph who with dance alone makes men fools. Even though she knows her husband dreams of her---she delights that La Petit Chocolat does not bow to it---as so many other countless woman have done. Why, she even commissions the portraits of her, just to spite him.   
To watch him gaze longingly on what he cannot have. 

Sparrow, named for his brown hair, and his flitting gesticulating fingers, dreamed. He had, early on, been very drawn to seminary, for reasons that had quite confounded his parents---he had had every intention of becoming a monk, or priest, a man of the cloth, but as quickly as the notion had taken hold, it had been a day murmuring prayers and he had turned his eyes toward the ceiling of the cathedral and his breath stolen away by the mural above. He immediately doubted his ability to instill in people the wonder and glory of God, but was overcome then and there by what he would claim was his new divine calling---art. For isn't the creation of all heaven and earth and it's inhabitants, art? What better way than to glorify his God than to honour its beauty and creation, all the facets therein, through oils and dye and canvas? 

His friend Augusta Fairchild had laughed. She was dark, tall, statuesque, with the voice of an angel when she sang---but singing was not her passion so much as writing had been. She was, in her self an opposition to convention, she dared to write, music. She had been modestly commissioned for a ballet, thrice, and her skill, quietly, praised although sometimes ignored if not for her being a woman than the colour of her skin, then her youth---triple jeopardy for her---it's grace and nuanced cadences and lilting melodies, simmered under the skin of her older, wizened, male peers. Chafed at them, nipped at their creative heels. They knew one day she would soon be upon them, this willy renown, dark woman, composing ballets and then operas---who had even dared to teach her music? they argued, who had deigned to see potential in her?----But let them take those queries to God Almighty and an astonishingly long family history of music makers. Augusta surpassed many disastrous odds.   
As had Love Grey, who would become her first--Sparrow a little later--- and dearest friend during this exciting and frightening time. Two women who, by some cruel pale standard, had no business or place, in the classes of those practicing, performing and creating high art. But there they were, anyway. 

"Abbie," Augusta flutters carrying armloads of flowers and letters into the dressing room after, blustering with lace and feathers and disapproving glares from some of the others in the corners. Most accept Love and Augusta, but there is always a few given to the notion the world was made and crafted to revolve around them alone. 

"Gusta," Love reprimands, catching her friends eye in the mirror. "You know I go by Love," she hisses. "You know I hate when you use my birth name---"  
So ordinary and old and common. 

Aside from the name being so, well loved and worn she had had to rise her self up out of stereotypes and being anything remotely, 'done before' would not serve. Augusta knew this. By God, it had been Augusta who had suggested it when she'd gone for her first audition. It's a very irksome habit that she continues to revert now. 

"It gets your attention," she huffs, unloading the lot on her small dresser. "You have invites coming out of your ears." she wrinkles her nose. "And another to sit."  
"Sit?"

"For his majesty. A portrait. You know how these go." 

"I cannot decide if the Queen likes me, or disdains His Majesty."

"Oh, I'd wager both." she chuckles. "You're to go tomorrow, before noon."

"Of all the absurd things."

"Of all the absurd things," Augusta coos in agreement. "What a harsh life you live, beck and call to sit pretty for royalty."

"Oh do go away, Augusta."

Augusta had laughed, and then considered if perhaps she should tell Love that she knew the man who would be painting her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> three living sites.....interesting names they've got.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SORRY I've been sitting on this chap forever to be honest, trying to add more to it, but it just doesn't fit, so there you have it folks, a chap completely dedicated to past life for now. 
> 
> It's their third life time and Love and Sparrow have just officially met, thanks to a royally favoured meddling mutual friend.

The Life of Love

"Augusta I am not certain," Sparrow had fretted before his audience with the king. "How can you be so certain the king will want me, to paint?"

"I have his ear." 

"More so than the queen?"

"Between us I compose apologetic ballads for the Queen when His Majesty missteps."

Sparrow had arched a brow at her, inquiring. "And in return?"

"Their Majesties both are very grateful to me for the ways I balm their union with music. They gave me my house."

Sparrow balked at that. Augusta has been living in her same house since before he'd met her. "For how long has this been going on?"

"It is decidedly none of your business." she quips, smirking a little. "I am a favoured musician. The Queen heard me singing once and she has been my most loyal patron since. It is why the king knows the way to her heart is through my craft." She'd preened a little at this, peering into the mirror in the hall and twirling one of her tight curls around her finger. "Besides which, Sparrow. It's no ordinary sitting. If they approve, you'll be painting the one and only, La Petite Chocolat, Mademoiselle Amour Gris,"

"Love Grey." he'd repeated dubiously. "I'll be painting Love, Grey," he emphasized, heat creeping up his collar.

Augusta ignored his flustering as she turned and examined the back of her gown, shaking out her skirt. She is not normally a severe woman, but today her dress is modestly regal, as can be expected of a woman in Royal Favour. Sapphire blue and emerald battle for pride of place in the heavy embroidery on her cream coloured dress. And her curls, coaxed into a surprising array of styles over the time that he has known her, sits today in a halo about her head, secured with glittering pins on the side for decoration. Not for the first time, he finds himself in awe of his friend. Her good humour in the face of the adversity she deals with from her peers, and her talent, make her shine, in a way, from within. He knows he's heard unkind words uttered against her, but she has always let it roll off her shoulders and prospered in spite of it. Secretly, he thinks she's favoured by God. 

But he supposes being a favourite of the Crown offers a certain amount of protection, too. The Queen is infamous for her temper, a fact the king must bear seeing as she is the true heir to the throne, and he, only a means to seal it. 

"Augusta," he begins to protest.

"Well you can't paint Grey Love." she huffs, spinning back around to face him. "He's hardly portrait worthy and the king has no interest in seeing him, draped across a divan" 

"Augusta," he hisses, drawing closer, a finger pointed in the air to lecture---she always teases him that he was suited neither to seminary nor art, despite his talent for it, but to be a teacher for he lectures so fluently.

"Sparrow," she sighs, resting her hand on his arm. "Love is a dear, dear friend of mine, as dear as you. If I am being honest I have long wanted to get you two together. I believe you'll get along, and we'll be fantastic friends."

"Augusta!"

She plasters a finger to his lips and continues talking, smiling softly. "Think of what we three can do!" she whispers excitedly. "A musician, a dancer, and a painter, what can possibly be beyond our grasp? We can do brilliant wonderful things, all three of us. Pool our talents---but only if you stop being so--" she gestures vaguely at his entire being which he supposes means there's something about him that is inherently amiss. "---you" she finishes. "This will be a grand step for you, if the King and Queen like your work. They already admire Love, and are fond of me. You'd be a fool to pass this up. Besides, you've painted her before," 

From memory, he thinks inwardly. From seeing her prance and twirl across the stage and having that grace seared into his mind. The twist of limbs, her small body propelling leaps and bounds through the air. Her secret smile, the one that always makes you wonder what she's so smug about. Probably just the fact that she's her. 

"Never up close." he retorts through tight lips. He throws his hands up. "I can't, I cannot do it Gusta, to paint for His Majesty is one, to paint her is quite another--" 

The throne room doors swing open and a man enters the hall, bobs his head to Augusta and to him. "Their Majesties will see you now." 

Too late. He swallows, his mouth suddenly gone dry and Augusta hums merrily, smiling sweetly at the man who flushes as she hooks her arm with Sparrows and guides him through the doors. The man watches them, letting the door sweep shut, the tune Augusta had been singing now wedged deep in his ear, he finds himself singing it too. 

It's to be expected, Augusta Fairchild's music has a captivating sonorous quality to it, even in something as simple as a hum.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Well," Augusta sniffs as they exit, keeping him at arms length. "In spite of the fact that you nearly sullied the Queens shoes when you voided your stomach, you uncouth……stork, she was charmed by your work besides. And the spectacle amused His Majesty, so congratulations. Don't come near me, you're embarrassing" she grouches. "You're like a child. vomiting when you get nervous. Most people sweat. Fidget. But no, you overgrown…..go wash up! and don't you dare be late, it'll reflect very poorly on me." she turns toward him at the end of the hall, and he at last lifts his head, miserable about the whole ordeal. He'd been doing fine up until the moment the Queen confirmed he had the position. His stomach had played a nasty trick on them then, he'd never been so humiliated. 

"I thank you for the recommendation, Augusta," he mumbles humbly.

"Hmmph." she marches back toward him and gives his shoulder a light shove. "You may thank me after the appointment goes well." she grins. "Well done. And maybe have a light breakfast day of, hmm?" she chides playfully and takes off down the hall again, twiddling her fingers in a wave as she goes. "Au revoir, Monsieur" she laughs. 

"Au Revoir"   
~~~~~~~~~~~  
"You are late" The footman says helpfully. Love squares her small frame and looks defiantly up at him, his glittering teasing eyes. He's a man twice her age but still he flirts with her. Were she not in the position she is, she might have consigned herself to a dalliance. But Love has been careful of her reputation since her star rose. Any courtships she may have entertained---always fleetingly as she dashed off to her dance classes---fizzled out entirely once she took centre stage. She would give no one cause to disparage her, no scandals or murmurs. Not even love, the name she wears. Her name serves purpose, it enraptures and entrances as she leaps across the stage. It's a presence, her coat of arms. A house crest. A brand. Not to be her trap. 

"You are jealous," she returns, tilting her head. "That the king does not like to gaze upon portraits of you,"

His answering rumbling chuckle makes her mouth quirk. "No, His Majesty would not relish the likes of me. Go on," he says, pushing on the door. "The painter has been here for hours."

Her smile falters. "Hours?" she repeats. The guard chuckles again. 

"Nervous bird of a man. Fluttering in and out for oils and chalks and canvas and cloth. He's terrified."

"Terrified?" she laughs. "Of whom?"

"He's about to be trapped in a room with one of the most renown and beautiful Ballerina's in France---a commission for the Crown. Show me a man who would not be both thrilled and nauseated by the prospect"

"Oh," she flaps her hand at his shoulder. "You're a flatterer, let me pass."

"but of course, Amour Gris," 

She rolls her eyes as she enters. "Bonjour Monsieur," she calls lightly as she enters the grand sitting room set up for the occasion. Light filters in through the ceiling to floor windows. The room smells of fresh flowers. The walls are cream and floral and the furniture beautifully crafted. "Monsieur?" she presses as she advances into the room, casting her eyes about, and at last landing on the form that seems to have taken up hiding behind a rather large canvas. He does not lift his head, but his tall form is too much even for the easel to conceal. "Allo?" her skirts rustle as she draws near. "Je m'appelle Amour Gris, et tu?"

"The painter " the muffled voice replies.

She raises a brow. "Is that all?

" Comment ca va Mademoiselle" 

"Ca va bien," she waltzes around to be on his side of the canvas but he shuffles the whole thing around with him, as if wielding a shield. "This will go poorly," she huffs, "If you will not look at me to paint."

"Pardon." he clears his throat. "Mais tu est La Petite Chocolat, et….et……"

"And?" she prompts. 

He sighs dramatically and finally lifts his head, straightening his form that towers over her even seated on a stool. She backs up, surprised and overwhelmed by the presence of him. The tall elegant grace with eyes that dart about the room frenetically before finally landing on her. "And I am nervous before your beauty," he confesses. 

"You were not born here,"

He grimaces. "An immigrant, an accent that refused to shake. But neither were you."

She arches a brow at him. She speaks impeccable french. But alas. "Non," she smiles. "You are one of few to know it." 

"I do not pretend to know from where you came, only that you are myth and legend embodied, gracing our stages and filling our minds with images of beauty and strength."

"Monsieur----"

"Sparrow," he finishes, warmly.

"Sparrow. Monsieur Sparrow, were you hired to paint or flatter me."

He flushes so deep his ears turn pink. "Apologies" he musses his hair. "I told Gusta I would make a mess of this, I told her---"

Her eyes sharpen. "Augusta? Augusta Fairchild?"

He blinks. "Yes, she is my friend. She….she confided in me she has wanted us to meet, why I cannot know."

Love rolls her eyes to the ceiling and then laughs. "Trust Gusta," she shakes her head. "Trust her to turn around His and Her Majesty to arrange this." she holds out her hand to him and throws her head back. "Let us start anew, As we are. I am Love Grey."

He takes her hand lightly, reverently, standing and walking around from behind his set up to be directly before her. He sweeps himself into a deep bow and lightly brushes his lips across the back of her fingers, lingering a second longer than is proper. A flush flares across her skin. When he draws back he can see it creeping across the exposed flesh of her bodice, the tentative beads of sweat curling the hair that frames her face. "My pleasure. Harold Sparrow, just Sparrow will do."

Their eyes hold and the air becomes heavy, laden with a potent, dangerous charge. She breaks it first. "Shall we?" 

she motions to the chair positioned facing his array of paints and charcoals. Still gripping her hand in his he guides her to the seat. He slides out of being a nervous man and into the artist he is. Takes care to angle her face and turn her knees, and plucks a flower, tucking it in her hands. He backs away, walks around her, surveying all angles---admiring her too, he must admit---and when he returns to the front she meets his gaze and for a moment he almost forgets himself--his job, his commission. He swallows hard and forces a smile. "I hope you ate," he says as he seats himself, taking up the brush. "We may be here a while." and she cannot help but think his words sound like a promise. 

Her eyes glimmer. "I had hoped we would."


End file.
